Leaving the World - Tapa blanda

On the night of her thirteenth birthday, Jane Howard made a vow to her warring parents - she would never get married and she would never have children.

But life, as Jane comes to discover, is a profoundly random business. Many years and many lives later, she is a professor in Boston, in love with a brilliant, erratic man named Theo. And then Jane falls pregnant. Motherhood turns out to be a great welcome surprise - but when a devastating turn of events tears her existence apart she has no choice but to flee all she knows and leave the world.

Just when she has renounced life itself, the disappearance of a young girl pulls her back from the edge and into an obsessive search for some sort of personal redemption. Convinced that she knows more about the case than the police do, she is forced to make a decision - stay hidden or bring to light a shattering truth.

Douglas Kennedy's exceptional new novel is a portrait of the way we live now, of the many routes we follow in the course of a single life, and of the arbitrary nature of destiny. Like his previous highly acclaimed novels it is also a compulsive read - and one which speaks volumes about the dilemmas we face in trying to navigate our way through all that fate throws in our path.

Aged thirteen, Jane makes a vow to herself and to her feuding parents - she will never marry, have children and lead the resentful life they chose.

Years later, now a Harvard professor and living with Theo, a filmmaker, Jane falls unexpectedly pregnant. Resolved as she's been to childlessness, she begins to warm to the idea of motherhood, even with a partner who is increasingly absent. But a devastating turn of events takes the decision out of her hands in a way she could never have predicted.

Her familiar world torn apart, Jane feels forced to leave her old life behind, and piece by piece begins to destroy the little that is left. She resigns from her job, cuts all ties with friends and family and moves to a place where no one will find her. Isolated, she feels she has finally succeeded in leaving her world.

Yet when a young girl disappears, prompting a high-profile police investigation, Jane is drawn in. Convinced that the person at the heart of the case is much closer to her new community than anyone realises, she has to make a decision - stay hidden or bring to light a shocking truth.

Praise for Douglas Kennedy:

'Kennedy is a complete genius when it comes to understanding the minds of stylish but troubled women. What's more, he does so enthrallingly and movingly' Daily Mirror

'Kennedy cannot help but write grippingly' Observer