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Check for Availabilityout of stock. Click on the button below to search for this title in other formats.  Eva Moves the Furniture
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:From a highly acclaimed author, the enchanting story of a motherless young woman torn between real life and the otherwordly companions only she can see.
On the morning of Eva McEwen?s birth, six magpies congregate in the apple tree outside the window — a bad omen, according to Scottish legend. That night Eva?s mother dies, leaving her to be raised by her aunt and her heartsick father in the small town of Troon, Scotland. As a child, Eva is often visited by two companions: a woman and a girl. Invisible to everyone else, they seem benevolent at first, helping her to tidy her room and collect the hens? eggs. But as she grows older, their intentions become increasingly unclear: Do they wish to protect or harm her? Is their meddling in her best interest or prompted by darker motivations? In the shadow of World War II, Eva studies nursing in Glasgow, tending to the wounded soldiers. But when she falls in love with a young plastic surgeon, the companions seem to have a very different idea as to her fate, and once again she finds herself unable to resist their pull. A magical novel about loneliness, love, and the profound connection between mother and daughter, Eva Moves the Furniture fuses the simplicity of a fairy tale with the complexity of adult passions. Review:"Eva still lives in a world where a midwife can look out the window, count six magpies in a tree and recognize this as an omen of death, a world that still retains some of the purity of a ballad. It's also a world that has utterly vanished; the brief access to it that Livesey offers us is comforting, if ever so slightly bittersweet. That makes Eva Moves the Furniture a bit like a ghost itself, certainly a companion and without question very welcome indeed." Laura Miller, Salon (read the entire Salon review) Review:"Not since Marilynne Robinson?s Housekeeping has there been such a beautiful novel about the unbreakable bond between mother and daughter. Radiant, perfectly poised, Eva Moves the Furniture casts a powerful spell." Andrea Barrett Review:"A quirky and enchanting novel about the thin curtain that separates our world from the next." Alice Hoffman Review:"[It has a] very distinctive and enchanting mixture of tenderness and quirkiness, a story that hooks you immediately, and perfect language with which to capture the inner lives of these odd, endearing characters." Diane Johnson, on The Missing World Review:"After Criminals and The Missing World, it should be no surprise that the immensely talented Livesey continues to juxtapose strange events with mundane daily activities, sending a jolt through her ordinary characters and settings. The wonder is that she can draw readers into her world so gently that the barriers between reality and the fantastic quickly fall....Her restraint and delicacy, and the reader's identification with the appealing Eva, result in a haunting drama. Every mother who yearns to protect her child will relate to Eva and react emotionally to Livesey's moving story." Publishers Weekly Review:"In a departure from her psychological tales full of menacing undercurrents, Livesey's latest outing is a deceptively simple coming-of-age story set in small-town Scotland between the wars....While it may take some Livesey fans by surprise, this lovely, bittersweet novel should find a warm place in their hearts." Library Journal Review:"However, despite a handful of mysteries to be solved here, this isn't the sort of book you read for the story. Instead, its charm lies in the melting grace of Livesey's writing and the effortless way she creates the mood and sensations of a specific, beloved world. The Scottish countryside where Eva grows up is a place of "foaming hawthorn hedges and woods of beech, chestnut and birch," where the motherless little girl grows up gathering eggs and playing house under a red-currant bush, passing acorn tea-cups to her supernatural friends." Laura Miller, Salon.com About the AuthorMargot Livesey is the award-winning author of a story collection, Learning by Heart, and the novels Homework, Criminals, and The Missing World. Born in Scotland, she currently lives and teaches in the Boston area. What Our Readers Are SayingAdd a comment for a chance to win!
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