The Best of Everything: Longlisted for the 2026 Women's Prize for Fiction
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'A beautiful and important story about kindness that will break your heart, then make it sing' (reader review) ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
'A joyous story about love, and what family means to each of us' Prima
'I read this in a sitting, revelling in every word-perfect sentence' (reader review) ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
'I defy you not to cry while reading this' Red
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?
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About the author
Kit de Waal is the author of MY NAME IS LEON, which was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award and won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year, THE TRICK TO TIME, which was longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction, a short story collection, SUPPORTING CAST, a memoir, WITHOUT WARNING & ONLY SOMETIMES, which was shortlisted for Biography of the Year at the Irish Book Awards, and most recently THE BEST OF EVERYTHING which was longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction. She is also editor of the COMMON PEOPLE anthology. MY NAME IS LEON was recently adapted as a film for BBC Two.
