Handle With Care

Charlotte O'Keefe's beautiful, much-longed-for, adored daughter Willow is born with osteogenesis imperfecta - a very severe form of brittle bone disease. If she slips on a crisp packet she could break both her legs, and spend six months in a half body cast. After years of caring for Willow, her family faces financial disaster. Then Charlotte is offered a lifeline. She could sue her obstetrician for wrongful birth - for not having diagnosed Willow's condition early enough in the pregnancy to be able to abort the child. The payout could secure Willow's future. But to get it would mean Charlotte suing her best friend. And standing up in court to declare that she would have prefered that Willow had never been born...

Review: Enthralling family drama ... seasoned with medicine, law and love Woman & Home Picoult's pitch and pace are masterly and hardly conducive to a good night's sleep Financial Times Impossible to put down and stayed in my mind long after I had finished Observer Superb, many-stranded, and grimly topical The Times You won't want to sleep until you find out what happens Heat