Two mothers are in the maternity unit of a hospital giving birth to their daughters, one of whom is stillborn. French has had heaps of fun writing this man, he absolutely leaps from the page as one of those people who just rub you up the wrong way. Hope's daughter, destined to follow in her mother's footsteps, but the person who brings Hope and Anna together a tragic and unexpected way. I’d like to ask her if letter writing features regularly in her real life, but I guess the opportunity to do so isn’t likely to arise! I'm going to keep this short because I don't feel like writing a proper essay for Goodreads, and the other long option would probably be rambling and vitriolic.

The events invite the reader to be drawn in and not only understand the story, but feel what the characters are feeling.Hadn't read anything by Dawn French before so I had an open mind and was hopeful as I have enjoyed books by other comediennes turned authors. If I was FORCED to find positives, the writing is fine and the author is also an actress, so the narration is good.

Grief is a strange and difficult emotion to control and I can understand the want to hold a baby and love a child like the one she had lost. What should have been a beautiful and celebratory day is marred by the tragedy and what follows only compounds the tragedy further.

There is no way a hospital would release a post-partum mother just hours after a still-birth, placenta abruption and a hot shower, without addressing something as simple as even drying up the breast milk, let alone the huge psychological issues! I knew what Hope had done was so wrong and on many levels evil, but I also couldn’t help feeling sorry for her.