The Children Act

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What to expect

Fiona Maye is a leading High Court judge, presiding over cases in the family court. She is renowned for her fierce intelligence, exactitude and sensitivity. But her professional success belies private sorrow and domestic strife. There is the lingering regret of her childlessness, and now, her marriage of thirty years is in crisis.

At the same time, she is called on to try an urgent case: for religious reasons, a beautiful seventeen-year-old boy, Adam, is refusing the medical treatment that could save his life, and his devout parents share his wishes. Time is running out. Should the secular court overrule sincerely held faith? In the course of reaching a decision Fiona visits Adam in hospital – an encounter which stirs long-buried feelings in her and powerful new emotions in the boy. Her judgment has momentous consequences for them both.

Critics Review

  • Compulsively readable… McEwan’s prose keeps its cutting edge and his books are the ones the reading public still crave… A masterly balance between research and imagination… One feels an immediate pleasure in returning to prose of uncommon clarity, unshowiness and control

    The Times

  • Classic McEwan… It’s a pleasure from start to finish, one not to be interrupted

    Guardian

  • A powerful, humane novel

    Evening Standard

  • One of the finest writers alive

    Sunday Times

  • McEwan writes as beautifully and elegantly as ever, his prose quintessentially English in its restraint, one meticulously chosen word hinting at depths of emotion

    Washington Post

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