The Choice

Hancock’s latest novel (after I Thought I Knew You) starts a little slowly, but then readers will be hooked by the mystery surrounding the family’s missing grandson and estranged daughter. The characters are well-defined and the story flows easily. Renee Gulliver is a sought-after therapist who lives on the coast of England with her seemingly perfect family. Even her closest friends don’t know the truth—how much her husband’s stroke has impacted their marriage, the fact that her middle child has been estranged from them for years, or that Renee is struggling to balance a career, caregiving, and being the perfect grandparent to her young grandson. Then one day, Renee makes a critical mistake: she forgets to pick up her grandson from school, and he goes missing. What follows is the unraveling of decades of family secrets and all-too-relatable conflicts that arise in even the most stable families.