The Love Child

Description:

LONDON 1917

When nineteen-year-old Alice Copeman becomes pregnant, she is forced by her father and stepmother to give up the baby.  She simply cannot be allowed to bring shame upon her family.  But all Alice can think about is the small, kitten-like child she gave away, and she mourns the father, a young soldier, so beloved, who will never have the chance to know his daughter.

Edith and Philip Burns, a childless couple, yearn for a child of their own. When they secretly adopt a baby girl, Irene, their life together must surely be complete.   Irene grows up knowing that she is different from other children, but no one will tell her the full truth.

Putting hopes of marriage and children behind her, Alice embarks upon a pioneering medical career, striving to make her way in a male-dominated world.

Irene struggles to define her own life, eventually leaving her Suffolk home to find work in London.

As two extraordinary stories intertwine across two decades, will secrets long-buried at last come to light?

Brilliantly evoking the changing attitudes of the time, The Love Child is a novel about love, family, separation, despair and hope, full of tenderness and deep feeling. 

‘Rachel has woven together a simply stunning story. Hooked from the start I couldn’t bear to stop reading and savoured every moment of this moving story of love, loss and, ultimately, forgiveness. The heart-warming ending left me in tears – the right kind of tears! I loved The Last Letter Home, but this is even better. The Love Child is an absolutely beautiful book and, in my view, Rachel’s best so far. The two main characters completely engaged me and the way their stories melded together and culminated in such a hope-filled ending was wonderful. I’m bereft now I’ve finished it.’     Dinah Jefferies