The Best of Everything

Longlisted for the 2026 Women's Prize for Fiction

By: Kit de Waal

Narrated by: Sara Powell

**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.©2025 Kit de Waal

Critic reviews

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)

A profoundly compassionate novel of devastating power and emotional complexity (Bernardine Evaristo, Booker Prize-winning author of Girl, Woman, Other)

Tender... A beautifully judged tale extolling the virtues of kindness

Affecting... a story of loneliness and sacrifice that navigates great sorrow with a remarkable lightness of touch

De Waal's tone is warm and wise... she has a knack for the small charming moment. Very moving

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)

So deeply moving. Sad and beautiful and true (Annie Macmanus, author of The Mess We're In)

Everything de Waal has written pulls at the heartstrings... tenderly explores how to build a life of meaning

A beautiful novel about kindness and found family

A beautiful novel about kindness and found family

Full of warmth, this is a joyous story about love, and what family means to each of us

Devastating and uplifting

Paulette's life story is ultimately told with deep affection and tenderness, allowing the reader to form a genuine connection with her and those around her... Life is complicated, especially when a person is tested in the way that she is. In the very best people, like this one, setbacks create resilience. There is somehow still room for hope

Paulette was such a wonderful character, giving so much and making do with so little, tough but vulnerable, as perhaps all mothers are....De Waal writes brilliantly about forgiveness without glossing over its difficulties. Paulette's relationship with Nellie is the beating heart of the book and a reminder that there are more interesting kinds of love than the ones usually celebrated in novels. (Clare Chambers, author of Small Pleasures and Shy Creatures)

Oozes with warmth and joy