Publication: 19th September 2019 – Hodder & Stoughton
What would you do if you found out your child wasn’t yours?
Two women. Two children. But whose is whose?
When two strangers, Tess and Annie, undergo IVF at an American clinic, their embryos are mixed up and each woman gives birth to the wrong child. And whilst they are ignorant to this fact something has always felt a bit ‘off’ in regards to their children.
The women only discover the devastating error three years later, after one of them is involved in an accident. Tess will do anything in her power to swap the children back; Annie doesn’t want to. As the pair wrangle, neither of them expect what unfolds.
This is a novel full of the complexities of how what happens when things can go wrong with IVF and the impact this can have on so many people. The moral issue about whose is whose child, the right versus the wrong and nature verses nurture. This is a powerful and thought provoking novel about making the best decision for your children no matter how painful that can be.
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Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for The Swap, the latest gripping novel by Fiona Mitchell. A huge thank you to Jenny and Hodder & Stoughton for inviting me to join the blog tour and providing me with a copy of the novel.
Two families on the opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean. What do they have in common? They went at the same fertility clinic at the same time. In England, Tess and Matteo have a baby boy, while in USA Carl and Annie have a girl. Following a car accident, Tess and Matteo find out that their son Frankie is not biologically theirs. Someone at the fertility clinic made a mistake and switched the embryos and now their real daughter is out there with Frankie’s real parents.
The Swap is a compelling and thought-provoking read. Two families have to face an impossible situation: choosing between the child who is biologically theirs and the child that they have raised and loved for three years. A nightmare that the author narrates in heart-breaking and emotional details. Told from the perspective of the mothers, Annie and Tess, we follow these two women struggling with the truth. Tess and Annie’s stories and circumstances are different and they react in their own way to the truth. I found myself questioning them, sympathising with them, feeling for them, while hoping for the best solution for both families.
Beautifully-written, moving, and intense, The Swap addresses sensitive themes like IVF treatments, parenthood, and what makes a family, love or genetics? I was completely captured by The Swap and I highly recommend it!!!
Fiona Mitchell is an award winning writer and has worked as a journalist for many years. She spent almost three years living in Singapore and now lives in London with her
husband and daughter. Her debut novel The Maid’s Room was published in 2017 .
Book After Book 