Someone Else’s Baby

I’ll admit, I approached *Someone Else’s Baby* warily. Another ‘woman on the edge’ story? But within 20 minutes, Catrin Walker-Booth’s performance had me hooked—not just on the plot, but on the *way* she delivered it. There’s a scene early on where Charlotte describes her mother’s grief as ‘a room she could never leave,’ and Walker-Booth’s voice drops to this hollow, almost reverent tone that made my skin prickle. She’s masterful at modulating Charlotte’s instability: one moment she’s the girl next door, the next she’s a stranger in her own life, and the transition is so seamless you’ll rewind to check if you missed a cue. The story’s biggest strength is its refusal to romanticize *anything*. Charlotte’s plan to ‘borrow’ a baby isn’t framed as a tragic mistake but as a series of choices so meticulously justified they become horrifying. That said, the middle act drags slightly—Speechley spends a little too long circling Charlotte’s justifications when the real juice is in the fallout. And while Walker-Booth nails the psychological beats, her male voices occasionally veer into caricature (Charlotte’s husband sounds like a disgruntled news anchor). But these are quibbles. The finale is worth the buildup: a gut-punch of ambiguity that’ll have you staring at the ceiling long after the credits roll. If you like your literary fiction with a side of moral quicksand, this is your next listen.