The Waiting List: An emotional rollercoaster, an agonising dilemma and a blistering book club debut
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By Matilda Wilding
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‘Extraordinary … unpredictable’ Daily Mail
‘Clever and brilliantly observed’ Emily Edwards, author of The Herd
‘Gripping, thought-provoking, and impossible to put down’ Emily Freud
Whose life means the most?
‘Clutched tight in my hand is a scrawled list of names… A list of people who could save my life.’
Liv wants to be the mother she never had
Liv has always dreamt of the moment she will hold her own baby. But just at the moment her new life – as a devoted mother to Max, a loving wife to Justin – should be starting, it looks like it may be ending. An undiagnosed heart condition, worsened by her pregnancy, has thrown her whole future into doubt. If she doesn’t receive an urgent transplant, she won’t live much longer.
But what if she can’t be here for her son?
As she grows weaker, her determination to raise her baby grows stronger. Without her to protect him, what future does Max face? Slowly Liv begins to ask herself a terrible question: she needs someone’s healthy heart to replace her failing one. For that to happen, an accident would have to befall someone else. But what if she could engineer that accident herself? What if she could choose someone to die in order that she could live?
If the end of someone else’s life offers you the chance of saving your own, whose life means the most?
A powerful and completely gripping novel about love, sacrifice and how life forces you to do the unthinkable.
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Provided by Raven Books and The Reading Agency.
Twists and unexpected turns abound in Matilda Wilding's debut novel 'The Waiting List'. For entertainment value and suspense, she absolutely does not disappoint.
As might be anticipated, the protagonist is awaiting surgery, more specifically an urgent heart transplant. Such an onerous prospect is compounded for Liv as she is also new to motherhood. Much longed for baby boy, Max, had been conceived after an anxious, gruelling and costly round of IVF treatment. In the absence of a mother herself during much of her childhood and crucial formative years, Liv wishes to engineer avoidance of a similar plight for her son no what that may forebodingly entail. There are several strands to this story, some of which may shock and others which may appear far-fetched or somewhat convoluted.
Liv, who works part-time as a receptionist at her husband's GP practice, identifies from the results of an unlikely Bank Holiday blood donor session, a list of potential individuals whose blood group type is a compatible match with her own. Moreover, these candidates are primarily drawn from the social circles of Liv and her husband. To what extraordinary lengths would Liv be prepared to go to secure and expedite provision of a new heart? Would even a fellow sufferer from her external support group be exempt from harm?
Further complications arise by the reappearance in Liv's life of both Dan and Alistair, past friends with whom her relationship may or may not have been straightforward nor entirely platonic. What does this mean for her son and her marital stability? To make matters worse, it suddenly emerges that husband, Justin, may not have had an entirely squeaky clean history. Woes proliferate.
Nothing is what is seems at first glance in this fast paced and gripping story. It was very difficult for me to put this book down and not to speculate on what would happen next. I loved it and look forward to reading more in the future by this exciting and imaginative author.
