The Baby Game
Schoolteacher Samantha Morgan wants nothing more than to go to India and pick up the baby that’s being carried by a surrogate-the baby belonging to her and her beloved late husband.
But a mysterious woman contacts her and brings up a long forgotten
event: her seduction by an older man at age fifteen. Samantha tries
to put that back in the past, but a friend and fellow victim of the seducer delivers some startling news: that older man is now the Republican candidate for president and is about to win the election.
A phone call urges her to come forward, tell all, and destroy his chances. She wants no part of the notoriety that would bring. Then her friend’s home is blown up, and it’s obvious that another, more sinister group wants her silent forever. She and her friend flee to India to get her baby, and there the real troubles begin.
When Samantha Morgan has her baby shower she is a little unique – she isn’t pregnant, but her baby is due to arrive in the next month and she is about to go on maternity leave! Sam has hired a surrogate in India to carry her and her late husband’s child as Sam is unable to have children after contracting chlamydia aged 15 from an older man who seduced her. But as the man who seduced her is now running for President, and in addition there is a mix-up at the fertility clinic, all is not going to go smoothly for Sam Morgan.
Both the Republican and Democrat campaigns get their hands on the devastating information about the Presidential candidate and behind many closed doors they begin to plot what they are going to do about it. The Presidents team start bumping off the girls who he got entangled with whilst the other side is desperate to get the information out there and ruin his chances of Presidency. Sam is a little slow to catch onto what is happening but her friend Lisa who was also a victim is lucky not to have been killed and is a bit more savvy than Sam. Together they head for India hoping to pick up the baby and escape the mess at home, but as you would expect the consequences of this mess are not going away.
Whilst in India further complications arise as they meet Matthew, a fellow parent to be (via surrogate) with his own complex back story. When the clinic discovers there has been a mix up with the sperm samples they hesitate to tell the two different expectant parents, but these two are bound together in more than one misfortune. Their surrogate babies mothers are twins and are kidnapped by those who want Sam to spill the beans on the future President. As the expectant surrogate mothers are identical twins they take both of them! Sam and Lisa hire a Private Detective, Mr Ramasubbier, to help them find the twins (the babies are due quite literally any minute), and they chase across India, pursued by hitmen, to find them.
As you can tell from this resume, a lot happens in this story, there are three interwoven plots coming together. It has pace and humour as well as touching on Indian cultural differences and idiosyncrasies. I really enjoyed the depiction of India and how Mr Ramasubbier fitted into the story. Sam was sometimes a little too naïve and I felt that Lisa recovered from the death of her husband (at the beginning of the tale) remarkably, even given the circumstances in which he was found (you’ll have to read it!). It is, sadly, very believable that all this could be going on hidden away in the political campaigns.
However I did feel that the title is a little misleading, this book is about the politics and not so much the babies (although they are vital to the story) but it would be easy not to read this because you thought it was going to be about surrogacy when it’s really about politics.
Verdict: This is a story with lots going on, even with everything I have written there is plenty more! So although this is not one of my favourite books ever I did like it and I enjoyed reading something a bit different.
Reviewed by Helen
