Magda Batey, the implant physician at a Pittsburgh fertility clinic, directs the lead embryologist, 36-year-old Emily Daugherty, to meet with and gracefully reject two potential clients; they\u2019re risky prospects that could bring down Batey\u2019s success numbers. Emily is surprised when the couple in question turns out to be her former college boyfriend, Ben Holiday (\u201cThe only man I\u2019d ever thought of having a child with, and I just let him go.\u201d), and his wife, Ally. Emily can\u2019t bring herself to disappoint the pair, who\u2019ve suffered four miscarriages, so they advance in the clinic\u2019s IVF process, where, according to Emily, \u201cThe real conjuring of life occurs behind closed doors, in a highly regulated laboratory led by me.\u201d Reinard then begins interspersing chapters from Ally\u2019s perspective; she\u2019s a marketing analyst who\u2019s annoyed by Ben\u2019s job switch, which moved them fromShelby, North Carolina, to Pittsburgh, and she\u2019s harboring secrets. The women\u2019s fates become intertwined, as Emily also undergoes IVF at the same time. Overall, Reinard crafts an enjoyable, twisty suspense novel that calls to mind Paula Hawkins\u2019 2015 bestseller The Girl on the Train. As the story goes on, the author nicely develops her two main female characters with nuanced complexity; readers may not find either to be completely likable, but they always remain compelling. Reinard also effectively depicts Emily\u2019s chilling egotism and questionable ethics, as conveyed in flashbacks and particularly in the clinic, where she sees the embryos as \u201cmy babies\u201d before they\u2019re anyone else\u2019s.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Magda Batey, the implant physician at a Pittsburgh fertility clinic, directs the lead embryologist, 36-year-old Emily Daugherty, to meet with and gracefully reject two potential clients; they\u2019re risky prospects that could bring down Batey\u2019s success numbers. Emily is surprised when the couple in question turns out to be her former college boyfriend, Ben Holiday (\u201cThe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":954,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}