Dear Thing

January 15, 2016
Cohen (Where Love Lies, 2014, etc.) explores the emotional complexity of a single mother entangled in a modern-day love triangle. Romily seems to have her life in control. She has a successful career and gives an abundance of love to her young daughter, Posie. Her child's godparents, Ben and Claire, also seem to have it all, except the one thing they want most in life--a child of their own. After years of failed pregnancies, Ben and Claire are at their wits' end until Romily steps in with the ultimate gift. While Ben welcomes the surrogacy, Claire is cautious in adjusting to the idea of another woman carrying her baby. Cohen presents a realistic depiction of the emotional challenges of surrogacy, for both the surrogate mother and the mother-in-waiting. Layered in with the already challenging relationship is an additional emotional entanglement: Romily cannot squash her romantic feelings for Ben. Her buried feelings not only threaten her relationship with Ben and Claire, but also jeopardize her chance at love with Jarvis, a man who stands by Romily's side despite his rejected heart. Cohen is a master at bringing to life the intricate details of love, hope, and sacrifice. Her prose is vivid and sensual, and her characters take on lives of their own in full dimension. At times, it's hard to tell where Ben's loyalty lies--with his wife or the woman carrying his child. His unstable emotional journey, like Romily's and Claire's, is necessary for Cohen's story to unfold as convincingly as it does. A gripping work of women's fiction with a satisfying emotional punch.

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March 1, 2016
Ben and Claire have it all: perfect jobs, perfect house, perfect marriage. There's only one thing missinga baby. After years of trying to get pregnant and suffering through miscarriages and heartbreak, Claire is ready to give up and has come to terms with the fact that she will never have a child. That is, until Ben's friend Romily offers to be their surrogate. Romily doesn't think it will be a problem being a surrogate because, being a single mother, she's already been pregnant before. There's one big problem, thoughthe fact that Romily has secretly been in love with Ben for years. Romily thinks she can disregard her feelings, but as her pregnancy progresses, her feelings begin to overwhelm her and threaten to ruin everything. Claire and Romily are two completely different women, but readers will want to reach out and hug them both. Cohen weaves a story of friendship, love, and betrayal, but ultimately, this is a story of what it means to be a mother.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)