Dear Thing

Romily has spent years watching her two best friends, Ben and Claire, ache for a baby they cannot conceive. So one boozy evening in the pub, she offers them the one thing she thinks she can give freely: she'll carry a child for them. She's already a single mother to her daughter Posie, she has no wish for more children of her own, and she's sure she can hand this baby over without a second thought.

She's wrong. As the pregnancy takes hold, so do feelings Romily never expected — and one she has buried for years: that Ben is the only man she has ever truly loved. In secret letters to the child she calls "thing," she pours out everything she cannot say aloud, and those letters become the spark that threatens her friendships, Ben and Claire's marriage, and the careful arrangement they've all agreed to.

Julie Cohen's tender, clear-eyed novel turns a simple act of generosity into an impossible knot of love and loyalty — three friends, two would-be mothers, and one baby caught between them.