Out in February 2025!
Jessica, thirty five, is married to Daniel, a 40-something city broker who commutes to London each weekday. She’s a stay-at-home mum living out in the sticks in Suffolk. They have one daughter, seventeen-year old Ruby, and one son, fifteen-year old, Alfie. Jessica is bored and restless – all she seems to do each day is to drive her children to and from school. She’s isolated in a nice house in the middle of nowhere.
Jessica’s secret is that when she was seventeen, she went on holiday to Spain with three girlfriends and came home pregnant after a night with a young lad from Manchester. Her family gave her an ultimatum – give up the baby or you’re out of the family home. She kept the baby, going into a hostel for young mothers, and walked away from her parents.
She met Daniel when she was nineteen, with her little baby, and they got together – he adopted Ruby. As far as Ruby and Alfie know, Ruby is Daniel’s daughter, and Alfie’s brother. Only Jessica and Daniel know the truth. And Sean, Ruby’s biological father, who comes knocking at the door on the night of Ruby’s lavish eighteenth birthday …
Iain Maitland, Novelist 