The Other Half of Me - Softcover

"McCarthy's alluring, stunning debut will box her readers into an impossible corner--either to race through to see what happens next or to slow down and savor language that is mesmerizing in its evocative powers."

"A beautiful, brooding novel of siblings growing up half-wild in a grand Welsh manor house... Darkly lush, filled with an irresistibly sad glamour, this is a memorable debut."

"Moving andinvolving...The past is front andcenter in British writer McCarthy's accomplished first novel... Next stop: PBS?"

For fans of Atonement and Brideshead Revisited, a gorgeously written, darkly wise coming-of-age novel about the pull of the past and the destructive power of the stories we tell ourselves.

“What good can the past do the living? What harm?” Growing up in their family’s ancestral home in Wales, Jonathan Anthony and his little sister, Theo, are inseparable. Together they explore the wild acres of Evendon, inventing magical worlds and buttressing each other against the loneliness of life with their alcoholic mother, Alicia, and a shifting cast of gossiping cooks and maids. When a family tragedy brings their glamorous grandmother, Eve, home from America, Jonathan and Theo are initially elated by the attention she lavishes on them. But soon it becomes clear that there is more to the Anthony family history than either Eve or Alicia will acknowledge, trapping Jonathan and Theo in a web of dark secrets that have haunted Evendon for generations.

Written in luminous prose, with richly endearing characters and a profound appreciation for the rustic beauty of the Welsh countryside, The Other Half of Me is a darkly wise coming-of-age novel and a masterful portrait of a family and the burdens of the past.