"Another Life" by Kristin Hannah

An audio book. In the USA it was entitled "The things we do for love".

Angie's 38. After 2 miscarriages, a baby who died days after birth, and an adoption from birth that fell through, she felt that her love for her husband Conlan should be enough, but it wasn't. Divorced, her father dead 6 months, she gives up her good advertising job to save the family business - a restaurant. Sisters Livy (a failed model) and Mira want to sell up.

Lauren lives in the same town. She has an alcoholic mother, 34. She's clever, and would like to go to a top university. Her rich boyfriend David, 17, will do so. She spends some nights with him. He longs for proof of his parents' love.

Lauren's looking for a job. Angie wants staff, so Lauren works for her. Lauren doesn't like charity or sympathy, but Angie's more than happy to be a mother-substitute, lending her dresses etc. Lauren discovers that she's pregnant. She tells David, who wants to do the right thing. She tells her mother, who has no sympathy. Her mother has a new boyfriend. It might be serious.

Angie sees Conlan by chance and realises she still has feelings for him. She finds out that they have mutual friends who blame her for the separation - she'd been so involved in her own grief that she hadn't help him through his.

So my guess is that Lauren's going to consider abortion, then reject it. David's parent won't like that. Her mother will want her lover to move in, so she'll chuck Lauren out. Lauren will move in with Angie. Angie will get back with Conlan and they'll adopt the baby. Angie will pay Lauren's college fees. There'll be obstacles and hesitations at each stage.

Actually what happens is that Lauren consider abortion, then rejects it. Her mother leaves with her lover. Lauren moves in with Angie. Angie remarries Conlan. They agree to adopt the baby. Lauren hadn't considered the difficulties to the child of having the natural mother always around. David's parents give Lauren $5k. Lauren wants David to continue with Princeton because she loves him, though she knows they'll drift apart. After the birth, Lauren runs off with the baby, as Angie and Conlan expected. Lauren returns to them. They suggest that she keeps the baby and lives/works with them while continuing studies.

I've doubts about writers who resort to passage like "though she was smiling, there was a sad knowing in her eyes". Later there's "a heavy sadness in her eyes". People often "draw a adjective breath"

Other reviews

• MrsB (I did feel as though it was a little out of touch with the direction of society today. I easily picked up that this was a book published almost two decades ago, as a few of the situations and responses presented seemed a little backward and not forward thinking. It was interesting to see where Kristin Hannah sat as a writer some twenty years ago as I feel her craft has definitely evolved into something much grander of late than this particular title.)
• goodreads