This Must Be the Place: A novel (Vintage Contemporaries)

📚 Why We Recommend It​
Robert is a man adrift in the Irish countryside, tending to sheep and a crumbling mansion, his days a quiet life of exile from a past he’s spent decades avoiding. Then Hannah arrives—a sharp, curious American with a suitcase full of questions about a woman named Louise, a name Robert thought he’d buried with his youth.​
This Must Be the Place isn’t a story that races forward; it unfolds like a fog lifting over a bog—slow, lush, and full of hidden depths. Maggie O’Farrell weaves Robert’s fractured memories with Hannah’s determined search, stitching together a tapestry of love, regret, and the messy, beautiful ways we cling to the people who shape us. There’s a quiet magic in how their lives collide: Robert, gruff and guarded, and Hannah, unapologetically eager, each chipping away at the other’s walls to reveal the raw, human core beneath.​
This is a novel for anyone who savors stories about second chances and the ghosts that follow us. O’Farrell doesn’t just tell a tale—she paints a world where the past isn’t something to escape, but a puzzle to piece together, one fragile memory at a time. By the end, you’ll feel like you’ve wandered through Robert’s sheep fields yourself, breathless from the beauty of a life finally coming home.