Motherhood is something that many women strive for. Of course, the act of being able to conceive, birth, and raise a child to adulthood is not an easy task in and of itself. For Claire Abrams, it is made even more difficult when she finds out she carries a fatal genetic mutation that claimed the life of her first born son when it was unknowingly passed on. So when she gets in contact with a fertility doctor named Robert Nash, who claims he can give her a child without her having to pass on any genetic defects, she leaps at the chance to do so. Combined with Jillian Hendricks, a colleague of Nash's who's looking to do more for the doctor than just work with him, Claire is able to conceive and look forward to a new life coming into the world unblemished. But what they're doing isn't exactly sanctioned by any rule books, and when word inadvertently leaks of what has been done, Jilian, Claire and Robert become entwined in what will become a long standing tug-of-war between right and wrong.
What really helped propel this thriller was in its fantastic use of the first person, going back and forth between Claire, Jill and Abigail, the girl born from the process that happened ten years earlier. As well, you start out enmeshed within the tale, as events happen chronologically, so that you are never quite sure of what's going to happen, increasing your willingness to venture down the rabbit hole in an effort to find out, like Abigail begins to do, whether everything she knew before is true or an elaborate fiction. While you come to find out that Claire is not everything you thought she was, I found myself sympathizing with all of these characters, as their methods, while for some, not exactly ethical, were certainly done in an understandable way. A great cross of some fantasy elements within a truly straightforward thriller, Kira Peikoff has written a great psychological morality tale that is made all that more effective by its plausibility in an increasingly growing technological age!
What really helped propel this thriller was in its fantastic use of the first person, going back and forth between Claire, Jill and Abigail, the girl born from the process that happened ten years earlier. As well, you start out enmeshed within the tale, as events happen chronologically, so that you are never quite sure of what's going to happen, increasing your willingness to venture down the rabbit hole in an effort to find out, like Abigail begins to do, whether everything she knew before is true or an elaborate fiction. While you come to find out that Claire is not everything you thought she was, I found myself sympathizing with all of these characters, as their methods, while for some, not exactly ethical, were certainly done in an understandable way. A great cross of some fantasy elements within a truly straightforward thriller, Kira Peikoff has written a great psychological morality tale that is made all that more effective by its plausibility in an increasingly growing technological age!