Blurb: ‘My arms ache with the need to reach and hold my precious child, and then to never let go. But I can’t. I know I can’t.’
Heather is devastated. There’s no way she can keep her baby. She can barely pay the bills as it is. But when she meets Grace, a wealthy, single career woman, who wants a baby more than anything, Heather believes she has found the perfect adoptive mother.
As Grace and Heather’s lives become entwined, they are tested to breaking point, though neither can deny the other’s love for the child. But just when they think they are learning how to live with each other, they receive devastating news that turns their fragile world upside down.
Will either mother know what is the right thing to do for the child they both love?
An absolutely gripping, emotional drama with a tear-jerking twist. If you love Jodi Picoult, Kelly Rimmer or Diane Chamberlain, this will warm your heart, make you cry, and stay with you forever.
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39752303-a-mother-s-choice?ac=1&from_search=true
About Kate Hewitt: Kate is the USA Today-bestselling author of over 60 books of women’s fiction and romance. She is the author of the Hartley-by-the-Sea series, set in England’s Lake District and published by Penguin. She is also, under the name Katharine Swartz, the author of the Tales from Goswell books, a series of time-slip novels set in the village of Goswell.
She likes to read romance, mystery, the occasional straight historical and angsty women’s fiction; she particularly enjoys reading about well-drawn characters and avoids high-concept plots.
Having lived in both New York City and a tiny village on the windswept northwest coast of England, she now resides in a market town in Wales with her husband, five children, and an overly affectionate Golden Retriever.
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/katehewitt1
Website: http://www.kate-hewitt.com/
Excerpt
HEATHER
‘Kev… I’m pregnant.’
Maybe I shouldn’t have said it like that. Maybe I shouldn’t have said it at all. But it’s his problem too. And I know that’s what it is – a problem. As much as I wish it was something else, something that it should be. A surprise, a blessing, a miracle. The normal things. The right ones.
‘What?’ Kevin stares at me blankly, slumped in the La-z-Boy with the threadbare arms and the stuffing come out of the bottom. I hate that thing. Especially since Kev’s been sitting in it for the last three years.
I know it’s not his fault. It was an accident. Hurting his back at work and now this baby. Two problems, two accidents that have torpedoed our little lives, exploding right into the middle of them so everything feels wrecked.
‘Do you mind if I turn off the TV?’ I reach for the remote resting on the arm of the chair. Kev grabs it instinctively, and I fold my arms and wait. He hesitates, and then, with a big drawn-out sigh, he puts the TV on mute.
Now maybe we can finally have a conversation, except I don’t know what to say besides what I already have. Kev’s gaze keeps flicking the screen. Doesn’t he realize how important this is? We’re going to have a baby. Another one.
‘How can you be pregnant?’ he finally demands. This probably wasn’t the best time to talk, at the end of a long, pain-filled day, one spent in front of the TV, and then a tense phone call from the union lawyer. There’s a hearing coming up but Kev didn’t tell me about the call. I just heard his low voice, like a growl, and I knew it couldn’t be great news.
But I think I’m at least twelve weeks along and we need to talk. I hadn’t paid attention to the signs that now suddenly seem obvious. The sore breasts, the tiredness, the nausea, the nasty taste in my mouth. I told myself it was the usual PMS, but this morning I looked in the mirror and saw my thickened waist, my rounded belly, and realization clanged through me, an almighty alarm bell. I had to tell Kevin.
It had to be when the girls were in bed, because the last thing I need is Lucy demanding in her high, piping voice what I’m talking about, or Amy triumphantly informing her how babies are made – something she learned on the playground a few weeks ago – in terms I would never use or want her to hear. I also needed to tell Kev before he took his pain meds, since he’s out for the count about twenty minutes after he pops them. Although maybe this conversation won’t even take twenty minutes. What else is there to say?
‘I think you know how it happened. The usual way.’ I slump onto the sofa, too tired to stay on my feet. Last night I worked the night shift, cleaning an office building in Newark until three in the morning, and then grabbing a few hours of sleep before getting up for the girls, seeing them off to school through a haze of exhaustion. The thought of another baby, another need, makes everything in me churn with fear because I don’t know how I can do it.
This is the thought that keeps blaring through me like a car horn, palm flat on it, since I finally acknowledged to myself that I was pregnant: I can’t have this baby. We can’t afford it, not the space, not the time, and of course not the money. I need to start work full-time; that was the plan when Lucy went to kindergarten. We can’t make it without that money. I can’t have this baby. But I can’t see any way not to.
‘But…’ Kev narrows his eyes. His hair is rumpled, his face unshaven. He doesn’t see the point any more, and I understand why. He’s been out of work for two years and nine months. Lucy doesn’t even remember when Daddy had a job. When life was normal, when the electricity didn’t get cut off on a regular basis, when my bank card didn’t get rejected at Stop & Shop and I fumbled through an excuse about changed pins while the cashier looked on in either pity or impatience. When Kevin wasn’t sprawled in that chair every hour of the day, staring bleary-eyed at the TV, the life sucked out of him. This is Lucy’s normal, and I hate that.
As for a baby… ‘It’s not like we do it that often,’ Kevin grumbles, and I don’t know whether to laugh or groan. What is this, a tenth grade sex-ed lesson? Or did he miss that, because we were busy cutting classes and making out behind the storage sheds; two shy, quiet kids who broke the rules for each other? And look how that went. Pregnant at seventeen, Kev a year older, married three months later, happy for a while, and here we are.
I remember those hungry, hopeful kisses, pressed up against the concrete block of the shed wall, my hands fisted in Kev’s shirt. Feeling so excited, so happy, like anything was possible as long as I had him. I’d never had a boyfriend before Kev. I’d drifted through high school, keeping my head down, trying not to get noticed, and he was the same. We lit each other up, like we had candles inside. Fireworks. I can’t remember the last time I felt like that, all fizzy inside. It was a long, long time ago.