Esme was a woman edited out of her family's history, and when, sixty years later, she is released from care, a young woman, Iris, discovers the great aunt she never knew she had. The mystery that unfolds is the heartbreaking tale of two sisters in colonial India and 1930s Edinburgh - of the loneliness that binds them together and the rivalries that drive them apart, and lead one of them to a shocking betrayal - but above all it is the story of Esme, a fiercely intelligent, unconventional young woman, and of the terrible price she is made to pay for her family's unhappiness ...

From the Publisher
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox is, quite simply, electric: the most breathtaking story you will encounter this year. With passion and exquisite control, it reveals the story of Esme, an unhappy child in colonial India, and later a troubled young woman in 1930s Edinburgh, who tragically does not fit into that straight-laced world, and of the devastating decision her family makes when this situation becomes a crisis. It shows us how her family closes around this terrible secret - so that when, many years later, a young woman, Iris, gets a call from a psychiatric hospital saying they are about to release Esme, Iris has genuinely never heard of her - and how Iris and Esme piece together a story as heartbreaking as it is shocking. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author
Maggie O’Farrell was born in Northern Ireland in 1972, and grew up in Wales and Scotland. She now lives in London. Her debut novel, AFTER YOU'D GONE, was published to international acclaim, and won a Betty Trask Award.