The Child

· Sold by Penguin
4.1
30 reviews
Ebook
384
Pages
Eligible

About this ebook

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Widow comes a twisting novel of psychological suspense—as seen in People, Entertainment Weekly, Time, USA Today, Bustle, Good Housekeeping.com, HelloGiggles, The Boston Globe, PureWow, The Dallas Morning News, and more!  
 
The Child is a perfect blend of beach read and book club selection....[A] page-turning whodunit….A novel that is both fast-paced and thought-provoking.”—USA Today
 
As an old house is demolished in a gentrifying section of London, a workman discovers human remains, buried for years. For journalist Kate Waters, it’s a story that deserves attention. She cobbles together a piece for her newspaper, but at a loss for answers, she can only pose a question: Who has been found at the building site?

As Kate investigates, she unearths connections to a crime that rocked the city decades earlier: A child was stolen from the maternity ward in a local hospital and was never found. Her heartbroken parents were left devastated by the loss.

But there is more to the story, and Kate is drawn—house by house—into the pasts of the people who once lived in this neighborhood that has given up its greatest mystery. And she soon finds herself the keeper of unexpected secrets that erupt in the lives of three women—and torn between what she can and cannot tell...

An NPR Best Book of the Year
A Bustle Best Thriller Novel of the Year

Ratings and reviews

4.1
30 reviews
Tamara Bass
June 30, 2017
The Child is told from the point of views of four different women: Emma, Kate, Angela and Jude. With that many characters, I was afraid I was not going to keep not only the details straight but the characters themselves, so I started taking notes on each character – just to keep all the women separate and keep myself sane. This was all for naught however, because the author did a fabulous job with the writing and the character development so it was an easy job at keeping everything straight. The story starts off with the skeletal remains of a baby that are discovered buried on a building site. As the story unfolds, the reader gets inside the minds of four women: Angela’s daughter was taken from a maternity hospital never to be seen again, so she is certain that the baby is hers. Emma has been hiding a terrible secret for most of her life, and now that the baby has been found, she fears that she will be locked up forever. Jude is Emma’s mother and the relationship between the two has been turbulent for years. When Emma was just fifteen years old, Jude kicked her out of the house because she believed that Emma was interfering with the relationship between Jude and her boyfriend Will. Kate is the investigative reporter that is working the story on the discovery and as she dives deeper into the details, she finds herself in a story full of lies, deceit and horrors she could have never imagined and could quite possibly be ‘The Story’ that makes her career. But who is the ‘Building Site Baby’? That is the question that haunts three of these women and that my dear reader is a journey you get to take in order to find out. Trust me….it’s a fantastic and captivating journey that kept me up into the wee hours of the morning to find out and it was worth every minute of lost sleep. I figured out who ‘the child’ was long before the story drew to an end, but the investigative journey was so fascinating and the story was beyond thrilling, I couldn’t even think of putting the book down. The way that Ms. Barton formulated her plot was simply brilliant and telling the story in the different POV’s really worked in bringing everything together. The Child grabbed my attention right from the beginning and continued as I attempted to put all the puzzle pieces together of this gripping and thrilling story. If you love psychological suspense stories then you need to check this one out. I really enjoyed this one and highly recommend it! 4 1/2 stars
17 people found this review helpful
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Linda Strong
May 17, 2017
Emma, Angela, Jude and Kate. An infant's skeleton is found as an old house is demolished. It seems like it has been buried for many years, maybe decades. All these women take notice when it becomes newspaper article. Kate is a journalist. She decides to do a full-length article with follow up ... who does this infant belong to? How long has she been there? Why and how did it come to be buried? Angela's newborn daughter was stolen from her hospital room 28 years ago and never found. She's never recovered the trauma and it has affected her entire life. Is this her baby? Emma has secrets that have never seen the light of day. Why is this child affecting her so much? Jude is her mother. Jude threw Emma out of their house when she was just 16 years old. Jude's boyfriend was her priority .... not her daughter. Emma has tried to share her secret, but Jude would not listen. Kate becomes involved with all of them not only because of a story, but because she genuinely cares. And as she becomes enmeshed in their lives, she finds herself burdened by stories that maybe she shouldn't share with the world. Having read THE WIDOW by this author, I was eager to see if this one would be as good. It definitely is! It was a slow start though ... each chapter written by a different woman. The book bounces back and forth in their memories from the things happening today to what happened many years ago. All of the characters are cleverly written. It's so easy to get wrapped up in their lives. The secondary characters -- husbands, police, other newspeople -- are all as credible and add a lot of interest to the story premise. There are twists and turns along the way, but I did not expect the most surprising twist at the end of the book. Very engaging and riveting book. This is an author to watch. Many thanks to the author / Berkley Publishing Group / Netgalley for the digital copy of THE CHILD. Opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.
53 people found this review helpful
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Rebecca Tobin
December 11, 2017
Really enjoyed the changing characters. Then there were the surprise trusts at the end!
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About the author

Fiona Barton, the New York Times bestselling author of The Widow and The Child, trains and works with journalists all over the world. Previously, she was a senior writer at the Daily Mail, news editor at the Daily Telegraph, and chief reporter at the Mail on Sunday, where she won Reporter of the Year at the British Press Awards.

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