The Choice

Renee Gulliver appears to have it all: a beautiful house overlooking a scenic estuary on England’s East Coast; a successful career as a relationship therapist; three grown-up children; and a beloved grandson, Xavier. But things aren’t always as they seem on the surface, as Renee is all too aware. And when Xavier vanishes after she fails to pick him up from school one day, the repercussions are manifold.

Renee is wracked with remorse; her daughter Mia can’t forgive her; the local community question her priorities; and her clients abandon her. But as long-held family secrets threaten to tear her world apart once and for all, those same secrets might also hold hope for the future – because it's not always the secret itself that has the power to destroy; sometimes it’s the act of keeping of it . . .

For fans of Hannah Beckerman and Lucy Diamond, Penny Hancock's The Choice is a beautiful, haunting novel about family secrets and silences – and the power of love.

About the Author

Penny Hancock was born and grew up in south-east London. In addition to her award-winning novels, she has written on family in the Independent, Guardian and the Times Educational Supplement, amongst others. She is also the author of a Cambridge University Press English Readers series and an English language course for children. She is a Royal Literary Fellow, with two grown-up daughters, a son and a granddaughter, and currently lives in a village outside Cambridge (but is often to be found sleeping on the sofa in one of her daughters’ flats in London!). The Choice is her fifth novel.