It’s hard to talk about this book without spoiling everything because something happens at the end of the first chapter that completely changes the trajectory of the story. The writing is really lovely and engaging but I actually ended up hating the direction the story took. I was on board at first, then it just got messier and made me hate all the characters. It felt like the author was really committed to what she thought was a great story idea without caring much about the execution.

Without giving anything away, I wish I could give two different reviews for this book. The first chapter deserves five stars. I had such high hopes for this book!! Ultimately, the book didn’t head in the direction I anticipated. I thought the concept was so innovative and engaging but the story itself had far too many serendipitous events and the ending tied everything up too neatly in a bow. This book is going to get a lot of buzz and I’m glad I read it but it wasn’t my cup of tea. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read and review.

I thoroughly enjoyed this debut novel. The emotions it explores are universal, the plot line is timely, and the way it is presented is unique. I am looking forward to reading more books by this author.

4.5 debut stars

I can’t recall why I was drawn to this book, but I’m so glad that I discovered this author. I went into it completely blind, which is what I recommend to future readers. Kudos to whoever wrote the blurb, as it doesn’t tell the whole story!

This story is about love, families, and the damage lies can do in our lives.

Honor is our main character, and the book opens with her family spending Christmas in Paris at an elite hotel. Sounds heavenly, right? Her husband, Tom, works hard but loves Honor and their daughter. But Honor really is pushing for a second child.

A shocking event changes their lives, and that’s about all I can disclose.

I was engrossed for the rest of the book and story, although sometimes I wanted to yell at one character in particular.

I really enjoyed this debut novel. Although I wanted just a bit of closure at the end, I am very excited to find a new author!

It is tricky to write a review of this book without revealing some spoilers. Tom's wife Honor has wanted a second child and is eager to keep in touch with a surrogate currently carrying their second child. A shocking event happens very early in the story which leaves Tom in a precarious situation, with secrets, stories, and decisions that come to a head in the future. There is some healthy tension in the story that keeps it moving.

Thank you to NetGalley for this debut novel by Loretta Rothschild. Tom and Honor seem to live a good life with their daughter Chloe, despite the pressures that come with Tom’s rugged work hours and Honor’s obsession with wanting another child. When family tragedy strikes, the story becomes one of regrets, missed opportunities, and lies that interfere with rebuilding, This is a story of relationships, well-meaning friends, and fresh starts. It’s about what happens when discomfort with honesty forces someone to build lie upon lie because it is easier than telling the truth.

This is a good debut. I did find the voice of the narrator sometimes confusing and some key characters not terribly likable but, having said that, it was a good read. The book turned out to be both heartbreaking and hopeful.

This book had me hooked from the twist at the end of the very first chapter. This book follows Tom as he navigates life after a major event changes him forever. Tom crosses paths with Grace, but they both must decide what secrets to tell and which to keep buried. I thought the characters were heartbreaking, yet elegant. At each point in the book, I could picture what the characters were doing a thinking, which made this such an emotional and powerful story. My favorite aspect of this book was the unique narrator. I thought this person gave even more perspective to the love story. I could not put this down, and I can’t wait to read more from this author in the future. This was one of the best debut books I’ve read this year! Thank you to the publisher and author for my advanced copy!

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC, in exchange for an unbiased review.

I'm not sure how I felt about this book. For one thing, it had possibly the best opening chapter of any book I've read in years. But. When a book begins with a bang, it must retain that energy. And this book just doesn't. The middle dragged on and on, without any real direction or goal. And while I've seen this book described as "a treatise on grief," it really isn't. It's more just a run-of-the-mill boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl romance. But I will add that as a former Londoner, the author made a curious choice to write such ivory-tower, rich, white-Londoner characters. It felt oblivious, and not like any modern London thirty-somethings' existence in the 2020s.

And while I know that NetGalley doesn't want editorial advice, as a Cataluyan resident, I beg of the author/publisher to make a correction on page 240: There is NO SUCH THING AS "Italian Cava." Cava is a DO of Catalunya. Brits drink Italian PROSECCO. My head explodes.

Sort-of spoiler alert:
I had thought that given the constant repetition of Grace being adopted, and the omnipresence of the mother-in-law Collette, that we'd discover that Grace was Honor's long-lost twin. But no; instead we get a villain that comes out of left field, and a happily-ever-after ending that seemed lazy and clichéd.

Wow! This book was a total surprise for me, in a good way. The only thing I’d read about it was not to read any spoilers and go in blind. Well that is absolutely true and I’m so glad I did! I was truly blown away by this plot, and as the book went on I kept exclaiming “noooo” in shock. I devoured this book in one sitting, if kept me completely engaged. Definitely some heavy subject matter but handled in a balanced way. Highly recommend!

Im not sure how to review this book because what a freaking ride. I felt so many emotions but ultimately, I could not put this book down. To be completely honest, I almost DNFd in the first chapter but I got to the end and knew I needed to keep going. I had to know what happened next. My only complaint was that it was a bit cookie cutter at the end, but that was small potatoes compared to everything that came before.

What a stunning and powerful debut from Loretta Rothschild. I find it hard to put into words how I felt about this book, but I have insisted that everyone I've ever met must read it. Simply put, Finding Grace hasn't left my brain in the days since finishing it. Rothschild's outstanding character development and riveting plot have impressed me thoroughly.

How can you not like Honor? She even has the same closet as Carrie Bradshaw! (& She's not even an American) She also has her own Mr. Big. She's married to Tom Wharton, a hedge under who attended Rton.

Honor knows what she wants for her family. She did not want her 4 year old daughter Chloe ("Coco") to be an only child as she was. After t miscarriages, she selects a surrogate who is as similar to herself as she can find.

The book starts with such promise. But unfortunately Honor is killed by a suicide bomber. I think the book would have worked much better with a second POV. I love Honor's voice, just not from the grave.

After such a wind beginning, the book becomes duller and flatter. It's not the cast of wonderful characters fault. While somewhat stereotypical, they are loveable. I want Tom and Grace to find happiness again. But their whole relationship is built on a LIE. There's some attempts at comic relief. Bringing a smelly wheel of cheddar to the wine tasting is funny. The Hobby Lane scene not so much.

The engage party Lauren throws for Tom & Grace is like a scene straight from my fav soap opera! Actually the entire plot/premise is.

It's too coincidental about Zara. Unfortunately the ending is very disappointing and cliche. Is this book a room.com romance or upmarket women's fiction?

The book started has a 5 but by the end became a 3.5. I do think it would make a great film! And I'd love to read more about Honor prior to her untimely death.

i really was enjoying where i thought this book was going in the first chapter, and i was excited by the synopsis, but i can't believe where this book went. i can't get into more detail without spoiling everything, but i found this so frustrating and disappointing. i loved the writing style and can appreciate some of the cleverness and emotion, so i would pick up another book by this author.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced digital review copy.

Finding Grace is the debut novel of Loretta Rothschild. This one drew me in right away, and the cover is stunning!

“Grief’s iron grip never weakens. You just become accustomed to its hand around your throat, moving forward but never moving on.”

Like a slow moving train heading toward a wreck, the tension mounts page by page in this unputdownable debut novel. Reader, listen to all the reviews advising going into this novel with as little information as possible. I did as I was told and I’m certain it enhanced my experience.

London based investment banker Tom has it all, a lucrative career, a lovely wife and daughter. When two women in his life intersect with a blinding circumstance, his decision making is something he (and the reader) will question until the very last chapter. This is a haunting story of cataclysmic grief, self-sabotage and long buried secrets; a gripping tale and a stunning work.

This will especially resonate with readers who enjoyed Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones.

Many thanks to St. Martin’s Press for the early copy in exchange for my honest review.

Honor is desperate to have a second baby and that desperation is causing a real rift in her marriage to Tom. And then a shocking event turns this story on its head and upends what they thought life would be.

This is one of those books that it’s best to go in blind. Within the first couple chapters you’ll find what the “shocking event” was and I can tell you, I was truly shocked. And I also feel like it’s really hard to talk about this book without giving any sort of spoilers.

So I’ll just say that aside from the shocking event, I found this book to be fairly predictable, a little meandering, and I thought the ending was abrupt and wrapped up in a pretty bow a bit too much.

But even with all of those things, I still really enjoyed it. It kept me turning the pages, I was so interested in how secrets would come out, and who would be the one to spill them. This would make for a great summer read when you want something with more depth but still want to fly through the pages.

If the first 30 pages of this novel don't leave you shell-shocked and breathless, check your pulse.

The opening of Finding Grace hit me like cinematic shrapnel—raw, shattering, and impossible to forget. Imagine the harrowing realism of Saving Private Ryan’s beach landing colliding with the emotional gut punch of The Last of Us’s second season's the most unforgettable moments. I actually paused, rubbed my eyes, and reread it, hoping I’d misinterpreted. I hadn’t. What followed was an emotional journey I won’t soon recover from—and wouldn't want to.

In this heartbreaking yet profoundly hopeful debut, we meet Honor: a woman seemingly living a fairytale life in Paris's Ritz Hotel, wrapped in the glow of her daughter Chloe and her once-charming, always-distracted husband Tom. She's holding onto love, reading him French poetry in the middle of the night, while anxiously awaiting word from the surrogate mother they've placed their future hopes in. But just beneath the glittering surface of this perfect family is a quiet ache, a longing for something more—until one seismic tragedy splinters their world, changing everything in a single breath.

Years later, a seemingly small act—a misdirected letter—sets off a chain of revelations that unearth secrets buried deep in the past. Tom’s choice to intervene links Honor’s life with that of Grace, a woman whose presence unravels what was once hidden. As timelines converge and fates collide, the novel digs deep into questions of love, loss, parenthood, and what it means to start over when everything has been torn away.

What makes this debut so unforgettable is not just its gripping plot but its emotional clarity. Rothschild paints human fragility with unflinching honesty—grief, guilt, loneliness, and longing all course through these pages with stunning realism. Every character is deliciously imperfect, navigating moral gray zones where right and wrong blur, and redemption isn't handed out—it’s earned.

And yet, through the heartbreak, there’s hope. Finding Grace is ultimately a story about second chances—not just in love, but in life, in forgiveness, in rediscovering the parts of ourselves we buried out of fear or sorrow. It’s about confronting the darkest corners of the past in order to carve out a new future.

This isn’t just a novel—it’s an emotional reckoning wrapped in a literary page-turner. It surprised me, moved me, and left me thinking long after the final chapter.

Put this on your radar now. It’s a stunning, multilayered, genre-defying debut that will leave you wrecked and grateful in the best possible way. I cannot wait to see what this extraordinary new voice brings to the literary world next.

Many thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the digital review copy.

I enjoyed this book. I felt like the plot of it was too far fetched at times, especially the whole Grace situation.

This is one of those books that seems to be getting polarizing reviews. Some people really love it and some people do not I fall in the love category. The start of the book is very explosive and then it kind of meanders into a story about love and a family and Decisions -the good and bad that we make. I really liked the themes of loss love fertility of course there were some frustrating parts and one of the characters was definitely very frustrating. There were a couple holes and I thought that it was gonna go in a different direction but at the end of the day I really enjoyed how it closed and I found there to be some very sweet moments throughout. I really liked the omniscient narrator as well

Finding Grace by Loretta Rothschild
Narrated by Fiona Button

Two women, never having met, are intertwined forever. One makes a decision that is wrapped up in an obsession and previous heartbreak. Another makes a decision that is wrapped up in heartbreak and wanting to get through grief. Really HE wasn't even a part of this at all, he was too busy for one and didn't know the other. So much guilt and anguish that will never let the living go and maybe won't even let the dead go.

I had been afraid to read this story but am so glad I read/listened to it. I think the way the story is presented to us, how it's told to us, is what helped me to feel so much about it and also helped me be able to handle the events. It's so very sad but luckily there were people for me to be angry at that helped me to handle the sad parts, it's always nice to turn your grief into something else, not healthy but so easy to do when you don't want to face the grief.

Tom, living with double grief, gets a letter not meant for him but he's already opened it, already read it. Now he can't let it go. Whenever he's on the verge of confessing his accident and later to confessing his continual avoidance of addressing what needs to be addressed, there is always an excuse not to do what needs to be done. There will be repercussions, Tom knows this, too many people know and see but he just can't stop what he's started.

There are a few people that I came to not like at all in this story. But there are more people that I came to adore, they became real, I could see what make them the way they seemed on the outside, I could understand their fears and how life had made them the way they were. These were just side characters and that is what can make such a good story for me, when I can get attached to even the side characters. I have both the ebook and the audiobook and Fiona Button did an excellent job with the narration of this book that is chock full of emotions of all types.

Thank you to Macmillan Audio, St. Martin's Press, and NetGalley for the ebook and audiobook of this ARC.