COMING TO CANADA AND THE UK WINTER 2023
Two women. Two eggs. One switch.
Katherine is a woman full of obsessions. Everything clean, everything perfect, all of the time. After seven years of trying – and failing – to conceive, she finally gives birth to Rose, her IVF miracle child. But, her pale skin not matching Katherine’s own, she’s fearful Rose isn’t really her daughter.
Tess never got her happy ending. She took on IVF alongside Katherine and a group of hopeful mothers, but hasn’t been one of the lucky ones. After a series of desperate choices, she’s divorced, broke, and stuck in a job beneath her skills.
When Rose is ten months old, they both get a call from the fertility clinic. The women’s eggs were switched. One woman has been raising the wrong daughter, while the other has spent a year grieving a child that wasn’t hers.
Katherine’s perfect life begins to crumble around her, but for Tess it’s the glimmer of hope she needs to get her life back on track. It’ll take a custody battle like no other to decide who really deserves to be Rose’s mother – a battle that will push both women to the brink.
compelling narrative that portrays both sides of a headline-making
controversy about biology, motherhood, and race.
Thoughtful, tense, and affecting, Charlene Carr has skillfully
crafted a page-turning story with compassion at its centre.
with these imperfect characters and the impossible situation they’re thrust into.
Each fresh twist had me shifting my sympathies until the very end.
Hold My Girl is a beautiful, unflinching examination of what it means to be a mother.”
and spiraling minds of two mothers who are thrust into an unimaginable situation.
With poignant insight and - at times - unsettling accuracy, Carr has crafted
not only a compelling, intensely propulsive page turner, but a deeply
emotional exploration into the very essence of what it means to be a mother.
I was spellbound from start to finish."
that raises thought-provoking questions about what it means to be a mother, a wife,
and a friend. Charlene Carr writes fearlessly and brilliantly from the heart about motherly
love, loss, and difficult moral choices. Her characters are so real, you ache for them as
they struggle to do the right thing in impossible circumstances. I was riveted from the
first page and couldn’t stop reading. I needed to know how this beautiful,
heart-wrenching book would end. It’s an absolute must-read.”
think about motherhood, biology and family. I tore through the pages of this gorgeous
gripping story of who gets to be a mother, and how instinct, love and longing
will either break us, or transform us—an incredible book!”
of motherhood. Filled with the ache of longing familiar to those who have hoped
for a child, Hold My Girl captures the painful experience of infertility and the lengths
many of us go to become mothers. For those who have experienced the loss of a baby
or those who have endured the trials of IVF, you will see yourself reflected in both
Katherine and Tess. For readers who haven’t, you will find renewed compassion and
empathy for those in your life who have. I’ve been waiting for a book like this to land on my
nightstand, and I am grateful it finally exists. I couldn't have loved it more.”
two mothers and one daughter. A story that is both every mother’s dream and every
mother’s nightmare, Carr bares the soul of her characters in ways few writers can as
she exposes their darkest secrets and desires.
An emotional and thought-provoking read I will not soon forget.”
