Description

**A 2025 Highlight in the Guardian, I-Paper, Prima, Irish Times, Irish Independent and Sunday Independent**
**A Bookseller ’10 Titles Not to Miss’ selection for April**
‘A profoundly compassionate novel of devastating power’ Bernardine Evaristo, Booker Prize-Winning author of Girl, Woman, Other
‘So deeply moving: sad and beautiful and true’ Annie Macmanus, author of The Mess We’re In

Paulette’s the kind of woman who likes the future all mapped out: the wedding to Denton, the Caribbean honeymoon, the gingham quilt on the baby’s crib. Until one morning Garfield, Denton’s friend, arrives at her door with the news that Denton won’t be coming around any more, that there won’t be time for her to say goodbye.

Somehow Garfield finds his way into her bed, and sooner than anyone can believe there is a baby, and suddenly giving Bird, her son, the best of everything is what gives Paulette’s life meaning.

So why is it another little boy, Nellie, who keeps Paulette awake at night? Nellie who is being raised a few streets away, with no sign of a mum. Surely Paulette is the last person who should be getting tangled up in any of that?

The Best of Everything is a novel about the love that can steal into our lives – in spite of the best laid plans.

Publisher Review

This is a book of such tenderness, full of pain, grief and despair and yet playful and joyful at the same time. Kit de Waal has an uncanny ability to create vivid characters with such empathy that I want to reach into the pages to hug them. I truly loved this book — Liz Nugent, author of Strange Sally Diamond What a wonderful novel, bursting with life. Kit de Waal is a writer who knows all the secret longings of the human heart — Cathy Rentzenbrink, author of Ordinary Time Beautiful. De Waal has the power to astound, to lift and console, to make life with her sentences — Donal Ryan, author of The Queen of Dirt Island A profoundly compassionate novel of devastating power and emotional complexity — Bernardine Evaristo, Booker Prize-winning author of Girl, Woman, Other So deeply moving. Sad and beautiful and true — Annie MacManus, author of The Mess We’re In