Eva Moves the Furniture
A Novel
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4.5 • 8 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
From a highly acclaimed author-the enchanting, bittersweet 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 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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
After Criminalsand 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. The first time the narrator Eva McEwen sees her "companions" she is six, and living near the Scottish town of Troon with her middle-aged father and her aunt, who came to raise Eva after her mother died in childbed. Though much loved, Eva is lonely, and when a woman who "shone as if she had been dipped in silver" and a young girl with long braids and freckles appear one afternoon in the garden, she is at first unaware that they are not corporeal. The companions, as she comes to call them, are not visible to others, however, and their purpose in her life seems unclear. Twice they save her from fatal harm; twice they destroy a romance; often they are comforting; sometimes they signal their presence by moving furniture. Eva works as a nurse in a Glasgow infirmary during WWII, but the burden of her secret keeps her from achieving intimacy with anyone. When she does confide in a man she loves, a brilliant surgeon, heartbreak ensues. She seeks solace in her mother's native village of Glenaird, where she marries and has a daughter. But in a poignant denouement, the significance of the companions is made clear. With remarkable control, Livesey presents the companions in matter-of-fact detail, eschewing frissons of horror and providing a lucid explanation of their presence. Her restraint and delicacy, and the reader's identification with the appealing Eva, result in a haunting drama.
