From the bestselling author of The Boat People comes a page-turning moral thriller about money, the dark side of philanthropy, and what happens when you try to change the world for all the wrong reasons.
"The easiest choices are the ones you make for other people."
Claire Talbot is the publicist at Children of the World, an NGO that funds international aid projects. Morally burnt out after decades working in reputation management, Claire is relieved to finally use her PR skills for good. Too bad the charity is on the verge of bankruptcy. In a last-ditch effort to keep them afloat, Claire arranges for an A-list actress to volunteer at one of their overseas orphanages. When the actress decides to adopt a baby and promises a massive donation, it seems as if Claire has single-handedly saved the day. But after a journalist digs into their operations and reveals a shocking crime, Claire and her colleagues must reckon with their complicity and all the ways their work abroad has harmed the very people they set out to save.
Moving between their headquarters in Toronto and their compound in Central America, the novel charts the charity's rise and fall. By turns scathing and compassionate, the book offers a compelling behind-the-scenes look at the complex and morally ambiguous world of international aid, and ultimately asks the question: is it possible to do good in a broken system? SHARON BALA's bestselling debut novel, The Boat People, won the 2019 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and the 2020 Newfoundland and Labrador Book Award for Fiction, was a finalist for Canada Reads 2018, the Amazon Canada First Novel Award, the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award, and the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award, and was longlisted for the 2019 Aspen Words Literary Prize and the 2020 International Dublin Literary Award. In 2017, Sharon won the Writers' Trust/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize for her short story "Butter Tea at Starbucks." She lives in St. John's, Newfoundland, where she is currently the Creative Non-Fiction Editor at Riddle Fence.
