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The Baby Left Behind by Jen Craven

Summary:

Take him. Please forgive me. Cate grips the note with trembling hands, looking down at the delicate bundle on her doorstep. As she reaches down to the baby, she knows she has finally got everything she’s ever wished for. But is he hers to take?

Cate tries not to cry as she closes the door on the nursery room once again. All she has ever wanted is to be a mother. Cursed with a medical condition that means she is unable to have children, her only option is to wait for a call from the adoption centre. But that call feels like a lifetime away.

Then she hears a faint cry from outside her house. She’s convinced she’s imagining it, that the grief is starting to overwhelm her. But when she opens her door and looks down, her heart swells. By her feet is the most perfect baby curled up in a soft blanket.

As the newborn’s eyes light up, Cate feels instant love for him. She knows she can’t just accept a stranger’s baby – she has to call the police. But as she picks him up, it all finally feels right. This is where the baby belongs.

But when her darling baby is rushed into hospital, Cate knows that in order to save his life, she needs to expose the lie she has been so desperate to hide. Can Cate discover who the child’s real mother is? And if so, will she be able to make the hardest decision of her life to protect the child?

Review: Wow, I don’t give out many 5-star ratings but this book sure earned it. The story grabbed me from the very first page and I couldn’t put it down until I finished it.  One of the most page-turning books I’ve had the pleasure of reading in quite some time. The editing was spot on I didn’t find any grammatical errors or paragraphs which read funny. The flow was flawless. The characters are very well-developed and very life-like. With the book starts out with Cate your heart goes out to her and you can see where she’s coming from and why she did what she did, but then your heart goes out to Jade and what she’s dealt with. So, like the Judge; you can’t just look at facts you have to look at laws and I’m so glad I’m not a judge as I’m not sure even the Law would have helped me decide what to do. But I feel the story had the best ending as someone who has seen what drugs can do to a person's life and that a baby can be their saving grace I was rooting for Jade, but I also was rooting for Cate.  The only thing I can say is that I wish that the sentence where Jade told the EMTs that she had PCOS it would have told me what it was cause I had to stop reading and go look it up as I’ve never heard of it before.

I received this book for free from NetGally for my honest review.