Review by Booklist Review
Tom and Honor appear to have the perfect life: successful careers, a strong marriage, a beautiful daughter, and another child on the way via surrogacy. However, a terrible tragedy during a family holiday in Paris leaves Tom bereft and raising a new baby on his own. Several years after his loss, Tom accidentally receives a letter intended for the anonymous surrogate and is compelled to learn more about the woman who carried his son. Grace knows Tom only as a widower who joined her Friday-night wine-tasting group and soon finds herself feeling a connection to him after experiencing her own devastating loss. As their relationship deepens, the emotional stakes grow more fraught as Tom hides the secret of the role Grace played in the birth of his son. Narrated by Honor, this poignant novel combines a tale of love, loss, and fate with a thread of increasing tension as the story builds to its inevitable outcome. Hand this one to fans of Jodi Picoult, Anna Quindlen, and the 2000 movie Return to Me.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In Rothschild's emotionally charged debut, a widower falls for his family's egg donor as the ghost of his wife watches on. Tom loses his wife, Honor, and their daughter, who's four, in the gut-wrenching opening chapter, when they're killed by a suicide bomber in Paris during the family's Christmas holiday. Back home in London, Tom learns that the couple's latest attempt for a baby--using an egg donor and carried by a surrogate--has been successful. Four years later, Tom, having quit his finance job to be a full-time dad to his son, Henry, leads a fulfilling if somewhat lonely life, watched over by Honor's spirit, who narrates the book from beyond the grave. A misaddressed letter reveals the identity of Henry's egg donor, Grace, prompting Tom to drop by her wine shop. Without revealing their connection, Tom falls hard for Grace, who looks just like Honor. Enjoyment of the novel requires suspension of disbelief--Grace, a small business owner, spends stunningly little time at her shop--and there's less tension in the looming revelation of Tom's deceit than the author intends. Better are Honor's tender flashbacks to their marriage and her musings about the challenges of fertility. The novel's examination of love and family will leave readers with plenty to chew on. Agent: Christy Fletcher, UTA. (June)Correction: An earlier version of this review used the wrong name to refer the character Honor.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
DEBUT While on a family vacation, Honor and her young daughter, Chloe, are killed in a Christmas suicide bombing at the Paris Ritz, leaving Tom a widower in mourning. Upon his return home to England, Tom hears from the surrogate carrier that he and Honor had contracted with just before the attack; she is pregnant. When son Henry is born, Tom quits his finance job to raise him. Then he receives a letter that identifies the anonymous donor of the eggs he and Honor used: it is a woman named Grace, who also lives in London. The plot unfolds from there, with Tom and Grace falling into a relationship, much to the dismay of Honor's friends, who notice that Grace resembles Honor. Secrets abound and begin to create tensions among Tom's friends and relatives. The story, told from the point of view of the deceased Honor as she watches over Tom, also recounts how she first met and fell in love with him. VERDICT Readers who enjoy psychological suspense will be speculating throughout Rothschild's debut work of women's fiction centered on themes of parental responsibility, which shows how good can arise from tragedy.--Joyce Sparrow
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
The past and present lives of two women intertwine in this novel about motherhood. Honor Wharton, her husband, Tom, and their young daughter, Chloe, have just arrived in Paris to celebrate Christmas. But even with the festive atmosphere, Honor can focus on only one thing: their surrogate, Jess, and whether the embryo transfer has been successful. Honor's desire for another baby is so all-consuming that it has led to intense friction in her marriage, which comes to a head the morning after they arrive in France--during a fight, Tom says he won't continue to pursue conception if the current transfer fails. Soon after, in a truly shocking reveal, readers learn that Honor and Chloe have died. When Tom, in a thick haze of grief after burying his wife and daughter back home in London, is told that their surrogate is pregnant, he decides to raise the baby alone. Four years later, Tom and his son, Henry, have made a quiet life for themselves when Tom accidentally receives a letter which reveals the identity of the anonymous egg donor who helped create Henry. Arriving at the address on the letter, he meets Grace Stone, a wine-shop owner and widow who looks remarkably like his deceased wife. Narrated by Honor, who's able to observe the world from a limbo state, the novel does little to capitalize on its initial emotional impact, falling into a sluggish plot that centers Tom--an unlikable character who makes frustratingly bad decisions at every turn. The author's attempt to concoct a love story between Tom and Grace falls flat. Tom's growing obsession with a woman who is Honor's doppelgänger feels unintentionally macabre, and his constant lies and emotional manipulations--he continually hides their shared history from Grace--are disregarded in favor of a neatly wrapped ending that is undeserved. A missed opportunity. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
