A friend of the family - Nicola Thorne

A contemporary novel which combines the intriguing subjects of surrogacy and obsessive love.

Tina and Steve seem like the golden couple: rich, good looking with everything they could want except a child of their own. Tina is a very beautiful but temperamental former model, Steve a successful businessman with international interests, but he also wants to develop his stately home in the country as a garden centre and leisure complex. The lynchpin to this enterprise is Louise who, though not unattractive, is solid and sensible and has loyally and devotedly worked for Steve for a number of years, since before his marriage to Tina which came as a shock to her.

Louise becomes obsessed with Steve. Her wish to be more closely bound to him leads her to make the radical suggestion that she should be a surrogate mother to his much wanted child by Tina. The consequences of this offer and the effect it has on the relationships not only of the three people most intimately concerned, but also their family and friends, is the subject of this riveting novel.