The Things You Do for Love: Mothers and daughters, lovers and lies

'A wonderful page-turner of a novel about the complexity of female life, by a new writer who understands it all too well. You can have it all, but only if you're prepared to pay the price.' Fay Weldon

An elite surgeon with a brilliant but philandering husband, Flora Macintyre has always defined herself by her success in juggling her career and her marriage. Until, all at once, she finds herself with neither.

Retired and widowed in the space of a few months, Flora is left untethered. In a moment of madness, she realises there's nothing to stop her running away to France.

But back home her two daughters - the family she's always loved, but never had the time to nurture - are struggling. Lou is balancing pregnancy with a crumbling relationship, while her younger sister, Kitty, begins to realise she may have to choose between love and her growing passion for music.

And even as the family try to pull together, one dark secret could still tear them all apart...

The very best sort of fiction that makes you really MIND about those people who you have only just met but whose existence throbs with vitality. Juliet Nicolson, author of A House Full of Daughters