What if the thing you most wanted feels nothing like you expected?

A Grazia Hot Debut

‘A richly textured novel showing the push and pull of motherhood, career identity and what it means to be a woman with multiple sides … I was absolutely glued to it’ Emma Gannon, bestselling author of Olive

After five exhilarating years in New York, Stevie has a successful career and a glamorous social life. But what she most wants is a baby, an aspiration that feels impossible given that she is single, thirty-eight and living in a tiny apartment in Manhattan, far away from most of her family in England.

Determined to become a mother, Stevie returns to London and has a baby on her own. When she gives birth to Ash, she finds motherhood painfully at odds with her former life and her expectations. She begins to wonder if having a child was a mistake - and what she might be willing to do to escape. As she struggles with what her future might hold, revelations from the past change everything she believed about family and love.

‘A vivid, compelling story about the unspoken truths of motherhood, family and feminine ideals. Tender, unflinching and beautifully evoked’ Francesca Hornak, author of The Seven Days of Us

‘An engaging parable about the ambiguity of modern motherhood, told with warmth and wit’ Leah Hazard, bestselling author of Hard Pushed

‘Maxwell explores uncomfortable but important truths about motherhood brilliantly in her story of a mother falling apart, and piecing herself back together’ Julia Bueno, author of The Brink of Being