An absolutely bonkers book. I don't even really know how to classify it. So much crazy stuff happens under the veil of romantic notions that I have a hard time classifying this book. So stressful, so sad, just a very strange novel.

Going into this novel, I didn't really know what to expect other than what is given to us in the synopsis. I think my experience reading this book was only heightened by that fact and I would absolutely recommend that, for anyone reading this, they take on the same approach.

Without giving away spoilers, this book is a unique perspective on life after grief, the meaning of family and parenthood, and the importance of honesty and vulnerability. It's also about appreciating and celebrating those we love as much as we can and allowing ourselves to be fully seen and loved unconditionally, despite our flaws or our long-winded struggles.

I don't think I have ever read anything that can be compared to this novel, meaning that, to me, this is a singularly wonderful story that explores some very dark, and yet very hopeful, topics with gentle hands and grace (pun intended).

Very highly recommend this book to those who enjoy novels that explore grief, loss, parenthood, marriage in all its complexities, and what it means to carry on with your life when your life feels like it has ended.

5/5 stars.

Unfortunately, this one fell flat for me. I really enjoyed the first 30% of the book, but then it felt like it was dragging on without a point. I ended up reading to 52% and marking as DNF.

📜Quick Summary: Honor feels like she has it all. Her beautiful daughter Chloe and her wonderful husband Tom. But there’s a nagging feeling…she would love another baby. Will Honor be able to get the one thing she really wants, even though her husband is begging her to enjoy the child they do have? One little argument leads to one huge decision and it alters their life forever.

❣️Initial Feels: I am speechless after the first chapter….

👀Trigger Warnings: miscarriages, loss of child, loss of spouse

🌶️Spice Level: maybe 🌶️

📖Read if you want: debut author, finding love again, grief, to find yourself again

🙋🏼‍♀️Moving Character: Honor has to be the character of the hour. Lauren (UGH!) and Tom really irked me at times, and I found their characters so frustrating. Honor’s growth from the start and throughout the novel was powerful. The ability to have the mindset she did, learn things about grief, her husband, her mother(😭)…her son. It was beautiful.

🗨️Thoughtful Words: "Everything was just a click away from the past tense."

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

"You can't boycott grief, unless you want to boycott happiness with it."

💡Final Sentiments: Wow…this was an exquisite debut novel! The writing was beautifully executed, and the flow of the novel felt natural. I usually scope out books prior to starting them, but for this one, I went in blind and I am so glad I did. I feel like the cover (not my usual style of covers, and I probably would have passed it up at a bookstore) and the title didn’t drag me in. After reading this novel, I understand the title and its meanings. Finding grace…life… happiness after loss is so detrimental to one’s well being. Everyone deals with grief differently and this just demonstrated the depths of an immeasurable loss. This book will cause you pain, bring you to tears, and question how you’re living your life. It also had me reflect on our main character and her journey, and the view from the other side. I really don’t want to spoil too much of this, but this is a MUST read!

🌟Overall Rating: 4.75 stars

🔉Special thanks to Loretta Rothschild, St. Martin’s Press, and NetGalley for this arc of Finding Grace.

📘Grab yourself a copy on July 8, 2025!

Finding Grace had a strong start, I was hooked right away and excited to keep reading. But unfortunately, the momentum didn’t last. The story gradually shifted into what felt like 75% a guy struggling to keep up with his own web of lies, and only about 25% focused on the love story and his journey through grief.

While I appreciate the opportunity to read this free ARC, the book just didn’t quite work for me. I really think it could have been shorter and more focused to have a greater impact.

A Poignant Journey of Healing and Hope!

Finding Grace by Loretta Rothschild is a beautifully written, heartfelt story about resilience, forgiveness, and finding light after darkness. The author does a wonderful job of drawing you into Grace’s emotional journey — her struggles feel real and relatable, making it easy to connect with her pain and her triumphs.

What stood out to me most was the raw honesty of the characters and the way Rothschild explores themes of loss, family, and self-discovery without shying away from the messy parts of life. The pacing was just right, allowing the reader to truly experience Grace’s growth and the tender moments of grace she uncovers along the way.

This is an inspiring and moving read that stayed with me long after I turned the last page. I highly recommend Finding Grace to anyone who enjoys character-driven stories with emotional depth and hope at their core.

Well done!

Honor and Tom have been married a number of years and have one child, Chloe. Honor is desperate to have another child but is unable to due to past numerous miscarriages resulting in her having her ovaries removed. They have secured the services of a surrogate but if the transplant of the embryo is not successful, Tom has had enough and wants to call it quits as the issue of having another child has placed considerable stress upon their marriage.

Every year Honor and Tom travel to Paris for Christmas. The first chapter of the book outlines their history and describes their arrival at their hotel in Paris ready for the Christmas season. I will stop there with respect to the details of the book because something happens at this point that you cannot see coming and I had to actually read the last page in that chapter twice as I couldn’t believe what I had read. No spoilers here, so you will have to read the book to learn more. I will just say that in the plot moving forward a number of years, Tom discovers some information and based on that, makes a decision that upends his life.

I gave this book 3.5 stars. It kept me wanting to pick it up everyday to find out what happened next and I enjoyed the writing style. I was, however, able to see the ending coming in the last third of the book and was a little disappointed that Tom ended up getting exactly what he wanted, and was forgiven for his dishonesty.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s press for a copy of this book. It is now available for sale.

Finding Grace follows Tom, his wife Honor, and daughter Chloe, and their journey to add a child to their family. Fertility challenges led them to seek an egg donor and surrogacy, yet the path to this decision has caused marital strife. Soon after, a misaddressed envelope ignites a chain of events that threatens Tom's future happiness. Filled with grief, regret, hope, and betrayal, this book is hard to put down and is an emotional rollercoaster!

The first chapter blew me away! I was not expecting that. The plot of this book is quite inventive, and it it happened in real life would be unbelievably awkward and strange. That said, Tom frustrated me to no end throughout the book, yet I felt for the guy as he had experienced an awful tragedy and recovered from it. This is a tough review to write without spoilers, but I was captivated by the plot and had to know how Tom would talk his way out of an early misstep. I felt stressed out for the majority of the book, but I hoped for a happy ending for Tom and Henry. This was quite the ride and I mostly enjoyed it!

Thank you to St. Martin's Press for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I’d been told this book was a shocker and that people were loving it but trying not to give anything away in the reviews. That sums it up exactly. Shocks, and secrets abound. It’s a compelling read and I stayed up way too late to finish.

This was such a hidden gem, especially for a debut! It’s hard to describe what this book is about but I recommend you pick it up blindly. You will not regret it! Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for my ARC in exchange for my honest review. This book is available now.

Wow! What a brilliant debut novel. It’s an unconventional love story filled with moral dilemmas and elements of a thriller There’s a major shocker at the end of chapter one and after that I could not put it down.

No spoilers here but themes include family and grief. I think it’s best to read it not knowing too much about it. There’s a wonderful cast of characters and it’’s an emotional roller coaster. Brilliant debut.

PS. Hey Loretta! I’m a UCLA alumni too! 💙💛🐻

The bombshell of the first chapter......WOW!!! Cliffhanger right from the start!

To say much more would spoil the plot. Just know that I enjoyed the twists and turns in this story. I found myself detesting one of the main characters and feeling compassion for another.
The plot was swift and occupied the reader's interest.

Thank you, NetGalley, and St. Martin's Press for the advanced reader's copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

#NetGalley #FindingGrace #StMartinsPress
#GeneralFiction #WomensFiction

This is a stunning debut!

Honor loves her little family; she is a doting mother to her young daughter, Chloe, and her marriage to Tom is loving and strong. But Honor is obsessed with having another child, so much so, that Tom is encouraging her to enjoy more of what they have instead of being so anxious about what they don’t have. That is…until a shocking event changes the course of all of their lives.

I can’t say too much without spoiling this story and I would encourage readers to go in blind. This book is for you if you enjoy literary fiction and a complex character study. I found this to be fast paced, intense, emotional, immersive and a very original storyline with a unique narrator.

Thank you Netgalley, St. Martin’s Press, and the author for this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

Just finished Finding Grace and wow this one really got me. It touches on infertility grief parenthood and starting over with such a unique perspective. The narrator’s voice was unlike anything I’ve read and the plot twist in chapter one had me hooked immediately.

4 stars, video review linked.

<i>Finding Grace</i> as a title has so many appropriate meanings that can describe this book. I am in awe of how this title can encapsulate so much. Its a story about grief, love and finding grace in the mistakes and missteps that grief can cause.

Honor, the wife of Tom, is the narrator of this story and follows Tom's life before Paris and present day. Honor allows us into glimpses of a life that includes so much heartache and secrets. The start of the book is a complete whirlwind and every chapter after that, the reader is there helping to pick up the pieces. In addition to sitting there and having to endure the many misguided decisions Tom makes hoping that he is doing the right thing by his wife and children.

I feel like things needs to remain vague as you should enter into this book without much background. But don't worry, so many of the unknowns are revealed within the first two chapters.

There was so much about this book that I love. The writing was wonderful and the storytelling was just as good. The content however, including so much deceit, is what made me not enjoy it quite as much as I could have.

The opening chapter of Finding Grace is emotional and gripping, a great set-up for an intriguing premise, but the rest of the novel doesn’t live up to the jolt of that first major event. There is the potential for a great story with real emotional impact and the exploration of the moral aspect of the main character’s actions, but there is a lot of fluff, and some uneven pacing which drags the story into feeling like a romance novel. The choice to use a character who dies early on as the narrator at first felt unique and interesting, but quickly became annoying. A good debut, and I will watch for other books by this author, but overall a bit disappointing.

Finding Grace is a story about love, but not the kind you might expect. The first chapter completely blindsided me, and it's impossible not to keep reading after that. This is definitely a novel best approached without knowing too much, so I’ll keep things vague.

The point of view felt fresh and original, which I really appreciated. The writing was engaging and kept me fully immersed in the story, a real compliment, considering I didn’t particularly enjoy the love story or the way the plot developed. That said, I think the author made some bold and interesting choices, and this isn’t a book that’s easily forgotten. Unfortunately, I found the love story a bit trite and overly dramatic, and the main character’s poor decisions made me dislike him quite a bit. Overall, I would still recommend Finding Grace, but I wish I had loved it more.

Finding Grace
by Loretta Rothschild ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | 🌶️ No spice | "The book that broke me before I even knew what was happening"
One chapter. ONE. That's all it took for this book to completely demolish my expectations and leave me sitting there like "wait, what just happened to my life?"
I thought I was settling in for a quiet domestic drama about fertility struggles. Instead, Rothschild handed me a masterclass in how grief can reshape reality itself. Honor's narration feels like someone whispering their deepest secrets in the dark—raw, honest, and achingly real.
Vibes We Are Tracking:
💔 Secrets that change everything
🫂 Found family after loss
🌊 Grief as a living thing
🔄 Love that transcends tragedy
🎭 Narrators you can't quite trust
The way this explores the ripple effects of one catastrophic moment? Absolutely devastating. Every character felt like someone I could bump into at Target, dealing with impossible situations that somehow feel inevitable. My heart was in my throat for the entire back half.
Sure, I saw the ending coming from miles away, but I was too emotionally wrecked to care. This debut has staying power—it's still living in my chest weeks later.

I went into this one not knowing what it was about, so I was understandably gutted almost right off the bat. That was quite a punch to the gut!

This was an interesting read. I enjoyed the writing, but at almost every page, my mind was screaming OH WTF, THIS IS NOT OKAY!

I look forward to more from this author, but I will forever hate this main character. Ugh!

This one grabbed me hard in the first chapter, but then it fizzled out for the rest.

Our MC, Tom, was so flawed it made it hard to trudge through. While his actions are fueled by grief, he handles things so poorly, time after time. I understand that’s what makes the story, but it was just one eye roll after another. The other down vote for me was the POV - without spoiling things, it just felt odd and a too convenient way to have an all-knowing narrator.

The ending was really unsatisfying and showed no growth from our MC. Again, things were just too convenient. What I did enjoy were the side relationships with friends and family. If it weren’t for those added connections, I would have stopped midway, I fear.

I normally like to leave with “it wasn’t for me, but if you enjoy X, give this one a try,” but it’s a hard one for me to categorize. I do acknowledge preferences though, so I encourage prospective readers to check out other favorable reviews.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for this advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.