The Choices We Make

by Karma Brown

Overview

Following her bestselling debut novel Come Away with Me, Karma Brown returns with an unforgettable story that explores the intricate dynamics of friendship and parenthood

Hannah and Kate became friends in the fifth grade, when Hannah hit a boy for looking up Kate's skirt with a mirror. While they've been close as sisters ever since, Hannah can't help but feel envious of the little family Kate and her husband, David, have created—complete with two perfect little girls.

She and Ben have been trying for years to have a baby, so when they receive the news that she will likely never get pregnant, Hannah's heartbreak is overwhelming. But just as they begin to tentatively explore the other options, it's Kate's turn to do the rescuing. Not only does she offer to be Hannah's surrogate, but Kate is willing to use her own eggs to do so.

Full of renewed hope, excitement and gratitude, these two families embark on an incredible journey toward parenthood…until a devastating tragedy puts everything these women have worked toward at risk of falling apart. Poignant and refreshingly honest, The Choices We Make is a powerful tale of an incredible friendship and the risks we take to make our dreams come true.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780778318934
Publisher:	MIRA Books
Publication date:	07/12/2016
Edition description:	Original ed.
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.80(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

KARMA BROWN is an award-winning journalist and bestselling author of Come Away With Me, The Choices We Make, In This Moment, and The Life Lucy Knew. She recently published The 4% Fix, a self-help book for time management. Karma lives outside of Toronto with her husband, daughter, and their labradoodle, Fred. Recipe for a Perfect Wife is her most recent novel.

Editorial Reviews

10/03/2016
Brown’s second novel (after Come Away With Me) explores the potential complexities of friendship, motherhood, and gestational surrogacy through the lens of an unusual ethical quandary. Hannah has always wanted to be a mother, but after years of trying every procedure possible, she and her husband, Ben, have had no success. Hannah’s best friend, Kate, who’s spent years serving as a sounding board for Hannah’s woes while raising her own family, eventually offers to serve as a surrogate for Hannah and Ben. Despite initial reservations from Kate’s husband, David, everyone’s thrilled when she successfully becomes pregnant with a baby boy, and Hannah and Ben excitedly begin preparing for his arrival. Then tragedy strikes , and Ben and Hannah find themselves pitted against David as they balance fear and grief against a morass of ethical and medical controversies. Brown captures the pathos of infertility and Hannah’s impossible situation, but all four central characters are fairly unmemorable. The resolution may bring about a few sniffles, but stronger characterization and better dialogue would have wrung more from the promising premise. (July)

Publishers Weekly

"We adored Come Away with Me and are ready for more of Brown's powerful, heartfelt prose. She's the female Nicholas Sparks."-Redbook

"Brown delivers an emotional punch in The Choices We Make. This is a good, old-fashioned tear-jerker of a book." -The Toronto Star

"The Choices We Make presents gut-wrenching questions about friendship and loyalty, when a parent's responsibility starts, and how to make life and death decisions that mean choosing between people we love.... The Choices We Make should appeal to readers who relish Nicholas Sparks' sentimental stories combined with the kind of weighty issues often raised by Jodi Picoult."-New York Journal of Books

"An involving story suffused with emotion but grounded in reality. Have tissues at hand for this one."-Booklist

"A compelling premise with a plot that intensifies satisfyingly in the second half, this book is a good bet for readers who don't shy away from difficult moral questions." -Kirkus Reviews

"Brown's second novel is as emotionally charged as her first. The author has an amazing ability to inject humanity into her characters so that they feel like real people struggling and rejoicing. Be prepared to shed a few tears when you travel this road alongside these people."-RT Book Reviews, 4 stars

"I was already emotionally invested in this beautifully written story of love and loss when an unexpected turn of events knocked the wind right out of me. Heart-wrenching yet hopeful, Come Away with Me had me smiling through my tears."
-Tracey Garvis Graves, New York Times bestselling author of On the Island

"One woman's journey through grief becomes the journey of a lifetime in Karma Brown's adventurous, heartbreaking yet ultimately hopeful novel. This emotional love story will stick with you long after you've turned the final page."
-Colleen Oakley, author of Before I Go on Come Away with Me

"Come Away with Me tells the heartbreaking yet hopeful tale of a life lost and a life reclaimed. Fans of Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love will flock to this novel.... Karma Brown is a talented new voice in women's fiction."
-Lori Nelson Spielman, author of The Life List

"Karma Brown has written a book that will make you feel like you've traveled the world without leaving your seat. Come Away with Me is full of lush locations, memorable characters, and a turn of events that is nothing short of jaw-dropping. Brown's work is as smart as it is effortless to read."
-Taylor Jenkins Reid, author of Forever, Interrupted and After I Do

From the Publisher

2016-05-04
In a novel exploring the fragile ties of friendship, love, and family, Brown (Come Away With Me, 2015) takes on the loaded subject of surrogate motherhood between a pair of best friends—and the unforeseen turmoil and tragedy that result. Hannah and Kate have been linked at the hip since fifth grade, and they possess the sort of easy intimacy—a constant daily connection—that some only find with family members or spouses and some find, well, never at all. Both in their mid-30s and happily ensconced in Bay Area homes with sweet, doting husbands, just one thing mars their otherwise idyllic-seeming friendship: the fact that Hannah and her husband, Ben, have been frantically trying to conceive for years, while Kate and husband David are already parents to two young daughters. Hannah wants to become a mother so badly, the subject of other people's babies can transform her into a seething pit of envy and pain. After a fresh round of fertility tests in which her doctor essentially tells Hannah to start looking into other options, she's understandably shattered. She has an off-putting aversion to adoption, which Brown doesn't really bother to explain, so Hannah immediately begins mulling over hiring a surrogate. When Kate steps up to the plate instead, offering not only to carry the baby, but her own eggs as well, Hannah and Ben find little reason to say no, and they excitedly begin the process. Kate quickly gets pregnant using Ben's sperm (it's a boy!), and everything moves along promisingly—until a series of dramatic health crises befall Kate, threatening to derail, well, everything. Lawyers become involved, as do protesters, and the four friends' bonds are tested to a degree no one would wish on a distant enemy. A compelling premise with a plot that intensifies satisfyingly in the second half, this book is a good bet for readers who don't shy away from difficult moral questions swirling around a sometimes-sappy center.

Kirkus Reviews