Margot Livesey – författare

It seems like mutual good luck for Abigail Taylor and Dara MacLeod when they meet at university and, despite their differences, become fast friends. Years later they remain inseparable: Abigail, the actress, allegedly immune to romance, and Dara, a therapist, throwing herself into relationships with frightening intensity. Now both believe they''ve found "true love." But luck seems to run out when Dara moves into Abigail''s downstairs apartment. Suddenly both their friendship and their relationships are in peril, for tragedy is waiting to strike the house on Fortune Street.

Told through four ingeniously interlocking narratives, Margot Livesey''s The House on Fortune Street is a provocative tale of lives shaped equally by chance and choice.

“Consuming… . . . Explores themes of honesty and understanding by showing the impact that obsessions—grief, rapacity—can have on a marriage.” -The New Yorker

Donald believes he knows all there is to know about seeing. An optometrist in suburban Boston, he is sure that he and his wife, Viv, who runs the local stables, are both devoted to their two children and to each other. Then Mercury—a gorgeous young thoroughbred arrives at Windy Hill and everything changes.

Everyone is struck by Mercury''s beauty and prowess, particularly Viv. As she rides him, Viv begins to dream of competing again, embracing the ambitions that she had harbored, and relinquished, as a young woman. Her daydreams soon morph into consuming desire, and her infatuation with the thoroughbred escalates to obsession.

Donald is slow to notice how profoundly Viv has changed. By the time he does, it is too late to stop the catastrophic collision of Viv’s ambitions and his own myopia.

At once a tense psychological drama and a taut emotional thriller, Mercury is a riveting tour de force that showcases this “searingly intelligent writer at the height of her powers” (Jennifer Egan, Pulitzer Prize–winning author).

“You’ll be glued to the page.” -People, Pick of the Week

“Like the recent blockbusters Gone Girl and Fates and Furies, Mercury gives us a marriage from alternating perspectives. Unlike those books, there is no looming gimmick or twist. The parties involved agree on what has happened. The question is whether or not their love can survive it.” -New York Times