The Marriage Portrait: the Instant Sunday Times Bestseller, Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2023

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Admirers of O’Farrell’s previous historical novel, Hamnet, may be nonplussed by this one. Where Hamnet’s emotional punch (read it and weep) was powered by its psychological and social realism, The Marriage Portrait is set in a world as fabulous as that of a millefleurs tapestry and inhabited by beings as flatly emblematic as embroidered ladies and their unicorns. There is a virgin heroine whose floor-length red hair, modestly confined in a pearl-decorated net, hints at rebellious energy. There is a devilish duke, handsome and cruel. Sisters come in pairs – the good (beautiful) one and the cross, ugly one. There is an old nurse whose gruff manner masks a kindly heart. There is the pure-hearted young man who might, perhaps, offer rescue.

The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell review – a dark The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell review – a dark

Here is a novel inspired by a poem describing a painting portraying a young woman who actually lived. Art and artifice are intrinsic to it. In Maggie O’Farrell’s imagining of 16th-century Italian courtly life, manners make the man, clothes make the woman, and an image is more durable than a person. An angry, powerful book seething with love and outrage for a community too often stereotyped or ignored. Her narrative enchantment will wrest suspense and surprise out of a death foretold' Financial Times

Inspired by David Copperfield, Kingsolver crafts a 21st-century coming-of-age story set in America’s hard-pressed rural South. Every bit as evocative and spellbinding as Hamnet. O'Farrell, thank God, just seems to be getting better and better' i newspaper Winter, 1561. Lucrezia, Duchess of Ferrara, is taken on an unexpected visit to a country villa by her husband, Alfonso. As they sit down to dinner it occurs to Lucrezia that Alfonso has a sinister purpose in bringing her here. He intends to kill her. What is Lucrezia to do with this sudden knowledge? What chance does she have against Alfonso, ruler of a province, and a trained soldier? How can she ensure her survival.

The Marriage Portrait: A Novel (Random House Large Print) The Marriage Portrait: A Novel (Random House Large Print)

The Marriage Portrait is an unforgettable reimagining of the life of a young woman whose proximity to power places her in mortal danger.