Pretty Baby

Why we love it!We love this intelligent psychological thriller about the motivation behind a charitable deed from the bestselling author of The Good Girl. With its simmering tension, intriguing plotlines and clever storytelling, Pretty Baby will stay with you long after the final page.Heidi Wood is charity personified. She works for a non-profit organisation, takes in stray animals and always has a few dollars in her pocket for the homeless. When Heidi finds Willow, a girl standing on a train platform cradling a baby to her chest, she can't get the image out of her head. The next time she sees Willow, standing in the pouring rain, she persuades her to share a meal at a nearby diner. Through gentle persistence, Heidi convinces Willow to stay with her for as long as necessary.So when she brings home Willow and her four-month-old baby, her husband Chris and 12-year-old daughter Zoe are horrified but not exactly surprised. While Zoe is happy that her mother is taking a step back from looking over her shoulder at every turn, Chris is worried that Heidi is being taken advantage of.Chris's suspicions about Willow lead him to hire a private investigator, but what he discovers will shatter any illusions about her being a harmless runaway. Meanwhile, Willow comes to realise that Heidi, having miscarried before, is far more interested in baby Ruby than in her.As Heidi's obsession with Ruby grows, Willow must make a choice – hand over the baby to Heidi and go on with her life, or reveal the sequence of events that has brought them to her doorstep before Chris does.Tragic and yet compelling, this novel reminds us that the past is what makes us. Both Heidi and Willow as narrators lead us through their webs of deceit and obsession, with heartbreaking results. Heidi narrates the main action, detailing the slow disintegration of her normal life, letting her work and her friends fall away until nothing is left but her home life. By allowing Willow to tease out the aftermath, Mary Kubica reels us in and keeps us guessing to the very end.Mary Kubica's first, The Good Girl, was a New York Times bestseller, and was praised by the Library Journal Review as "compulsively readable and highly recommended for anyone who loves a mystery, a suspense tale, or a psychological puzzle." Like Heidi, Kubica has a soft spot for strays and volunteers at her local shelter just outside of Chicago.