"From the author of the critically acclaimed The Illness Lesson ("astoundingly original"--NYTBR), comes a a page-turning and psychologically penetrating tale about the rules that govern women's bodies and lives. In 1948, Irene Willard, who's had five previous miscarriages in a quest to give her beloved husband the child he desperately desires and is now pregnant again, comes to an isolated house-cum-hospital in the Berkshires, run by a husband-and-wife...

"North Carolina, 1960s. Lorraine has it all -- the boyfriend, the good grades, the white picket fence, the ambition to become the first woman astronaut. But when she-the darling girl-next-door-becomes pregnant, she learns that love is conditional and ambition has its limits. In an effort to hide their daughter's secret shame, her parents send her away to a maternity home -- a common solution for "wayward" girls during that time period. Lorraine soon...

"Myrrh has a goblin inside her, a voice in her head that tells her all the things she's done wrong, that berates her and drags her down. Desperately searching for her birth-parents across dilapidated seaside towns in the South coast of England, she finds herself silenced and cut off at every step. Cayenne is trapped in a loveless marriage, the distance between her and her husband growing further and further each day. Longing for a child, she has...

"Blending memoir with social history, Clair Wills movingly explores the gaping holes in the fabric of modern Ireland, and in her own family story"--