The making of us : a novel

Lydia, Robyn and Dean don't know each other. Yet. They are all facing difficult challenges. Lydia is still wearing the scars from her traumatic childhood and although she is wealthy and successful, her life is lonely and disjointed. Her best friend has just had a baby and the closest thing she has to a physical relationship is with her personal fitness trainer - who is probably gay. An unexpected letter from her long-lost uncle reveals a shocking truth about her childhood. Dean is a young man whose life is going nowhere. He is jobless and about to have a baby with a girl who hates him. But then one afternoon, life flips over and leaves him somewhere he never expected to be: a single dad to an ill daughter and he is forced to re-evaluate his whole life. Robyn is nineteen. She is training to be a doctor and is determined one day to be a paediatrician, just like her dad. She has never met her dad. Neither has her mother. He was an anonymous donor, and that's exactly what she wants him to stay. The man who brought her up is the only dad she wants. Her donor dad is just a character in her own personal fairy tale. Until the day she meets the man of dreams and falls in love. He looks like her, he thinks like her, he even has the same freckle in the same place on his left hand. It could be just a coincidence, but she needs to be sure before she can allow herself to be with him. Meanwhile in a hospice in Bury St Edmunds, a man called Daniel is slowly fading away. His friend Maggie sits with him every day; she holds his hand and she moistens his mouth and she listens to the story of his life, to his regrets and to his secrets. And then he tells her about the children he has never met and never will, conceived with women he has never slept with, never even touched. Four of them , apparently, two boys, two girls. He talks of them wistfully. His legacy, he calls them. As his children slowly find their way into each other's lives, will Daniel have a chance to meet his legacy and to say goodbye to his children before his time is up? In a hospice in Bury St Edmunds, a man called Daniel is slowly fading away. His friend Maggie sits with him every day; she holds his hand and she listens to the story of his life, to his regrets and to his secrets. And then he tells her about the children he has never met and never will. He talks of them wistfully. His legacy, he calls them. Lydia, Dean and Robyn don't know each other. Yet. And they are all facing difficult changes. Lydia is still wearing the scars from her traumatic childhood and although she is wealthy and successful, her life is lonely and disjointed. Dean is a young man, burdened with unexpected responsibility, whose life is going nowhere. And Robyn wants to be a doctor, just like her father - a man she's never met. But is her whole life built on an illusion? Three people leading three very different lives. All lost. All looking for something. But when they slowly find their way into each other's lives, everything starts to change ... The gripping novel from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Then She Was Gone and The Family Upstairs. _____________ Lydia, Robyn and Dean don't know each other - yet. They live very different lives but each of them, independently, has always felt that something is missing. What they don't know is that a letter is about to arrive that will turn their lives upside down. It is a letter containing a secret - one that will bind them together, and show them what love and family and friendship really mean... _____________ Reader's can't get enough of The Making Of Us . . . ***** ' Really gripping . Couldn't put it down.' ***** ' Truly a great read for just about everyone .' ***** ' Lisa Jewell is becoming one of my favourites. This is the third book of hers that I absolutely loved.' ***** ' I loved the characters and the way the author unravel their stories.' ***** ' I loved this book from the beginning.' As a man named Daniel slowly fades away in a London hospice, he tells his friend Maggie that he was an anonymous sperm donor who fathered four children--a revelation that unexpectedly brings together a group of strangers, in this powerful celebration of family, friendship, life, and love