Surrogate, a novel by Tracy Crisp

Wakefield Press, 2017. ISBN 9781743055083
(Age: Adult) Surrogate is the story of two mothers, not as you might at first expect, the surrogate and the adoptive mother, but of two women from different eras, a surrogate mother of the 1990s, and a relinquishing mother, a single woman in the 1960's, forced to give up her baby when her fiance is called up to the Vietnam War.
Rachael is a young nurse whose romantic relationships have not turned out well, and when she is befriended by an attractive doctor and her husband, the friendship starts to go much further than she expected; first she is asked by them to housesit while they go to Vietnam to pick up their to-be-adopted child, and then when that falls through, she is led into an ever more intimate relationship whereby she will become a surrogate mother and bear a child for them.
Interwoven with Rachael's story is the story of Mary, who as a single woman in the 1960's, was forced to give up her first child before she even saw it. Gradually the connection between the two stories is revealed. It is an interesting juxtaposition, and provokes questions of the difference between decisions made under coercion and those made freely in full understanding of the consequences.
Finally Rachael has to make her own decision and face what it means for all involved.
Helen Eddy