Faye is 39 and single. She’s terrified that she may never have the one thing she always wanted: a child of her own.

Then she hears about an online co-parenting app. For men and women who want to have a baby, but don’t want to do it alone. When the app matches her with smooth-talking, wealthy Louis, it feels as though the fates have aligned.

But just one year later, Faye’s dream has turned into a nightmare. She’s on the run from Louis, with baby Jake in tow.

In desperate need of a new place to live, she responds to an advert from an older lady, Rachel, who’s renting out a room in her cottage in a remote Norfolk village. It’s all Faye can afford – and surely she’ll be safe from Louis there?

But is Rachel the benevolent landlady she pretends to be? Or does she have a secret of her own?

Thanks to NetGalley and Quercus Books for letting me read this book prior to its publication. My opinion is 100% honest, unbiased, and my own.

Every time that I see Charlotte Duckworth is going to publish a new book, I just have to read it. So when I saw I had been granted access to read this one, I felt overjoyed. And I wasn’t disappointed by the time I finished reading it. What a rollercoaster! Don’t miss this one. She has set the bar so high with this story that I am dying to see what’s next for this author.

Told in dual timelines, we get a glimpse to the events that happened in the past that led the protagonist to the predicament she finds herself in the actual present time of the narration. It’s a story about women and motherhood, and about their relationship with their children, and about those desires and cravings that some women have when they cannot be mothers. The premise of the story was quite original. An app that connects people who want to co-parent as the only way for them to be parents? Wow. My first thought was, “Oh my, imagine how many weirdos joining the app, like it happens in any other app. Imagine having to sieve through all those random people to find someone you can have a child with”. Craziness. But in the whole of this book, it created the sort of atmosphere and relationships that give us, readers of good thrillers, a lot of enjoyment. It’s the kind of thing that makes you keep turning the pages because you need to know what’s going to happen.

So, clearly, co-parenting with a random person would lead to disaster. And the author does a fantastic job at showing us how the whole situation can evolve, change the characters, and lead to certain events. The writing is great. I truly think this is the best book written by this author up to now.

Another thing that I love about this books is that it is totally unpredictable. When you think you have the whole thing figured out, well, then you have to think again, because you were wrong. Twists and revelations that will make your head spin. That’s how good this book is. And buckle up for the ending. What an ending.

I won’t say more because I don’t want to give up too much and I am always scared of inadvertently revealing spoilers. Just trust me and give this book a try. It will keep you reading all day, and probably all night too.

So, for all of that, I give this book… 5 TEA CUPS!