Book Review: A Mother’s Goodbye by Kate Hewitt

Lads, get the tissues ready for this one, that’s all I’m saying.

A Mother’s Goodbye by Kate Hewitt is a heartbreaking story which begins with Heather, a married mother-of-three who finds herself pregnant with a baby she can’t afford to keep. She makes the very difficult choice of adopting her baby to single, wealthy Grace and their lives become intertwined. Learning to deal with one another due to their overwhelming love for the same child, they are both really put to the test when they receive some devastating news. Will Grace and Heather be able to do the right thing for the child they both love?

What immediately drew me to A Mother’s Goodbye was the claim that fans of Jodi Picoult will love it. Jodi Picoult is my absolute favourite author so I could have been setting myself up for disappointment but I wholeheartedly enjoyed this book. Like the work of Picoult, Hewitt takes a moral dilemma and trashes out the different choices and decisions that the characters have to make, leaving the reader gripped and often on the verge of tears – in the best way possible, of course.

What I love about books like A Mother’s Goodbye is the connection they make with the reader, even if you are not personally going through the same situation as the characters. In this case, I read A Mother’s Goodbye leading up to the abortion referendum in Ireland (which was passed, by the way). The timing helped me make a deeper connection to this book: what really are a woman’s choices when it comes to pregnancy, especially an unwanted one? Are we too quick to judge other women, believing their choices are made lightly when 99.9% of the time they are not?

On the other side, this is more than a story about adoption. It is also a story about relationships, the relationship between a struggling husband and wife, between parents and their children, between a woman and her colleagues, to name a few. Equally, it is a story about grief and letting go.

A Mother’s Choice is also very strong on the character side. Heather and Grace are the main characters in the book. They are two very different women with very different lives, totally unconnected up until the point of the adoption. I applaud the author for the wonderful development each character enjoys throughout the book, and how successfully they are intertwined but also have chapters where they stand alone as their own person. Heather and Grace are not monotonous either. I found myself chopping and changing between liking one more than the other throughout the story. To be able to successfully play with the feelings of the reader and still keep the story flowing excellently is another feat I believe Hewitt should be applauded for.

Overall, I truly enjoyed this book. It is my first sample of Hewitt’s work and I am going to make it my business that it won’t be my last.

I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.