Life on the NHS front line, working within a system at breaking point, is more extreme than you could ever imagine. From the bloody to the beautiful, from moments of utter vulnerability to remarkable displays of strength, from camaraderie to raw desperation, from heart-wrenching grief to the pure, perfect joy of a newborn baby, midwife Leah Hazard has seen it all. 

The First Breath is the first popular science book about the pioneering fetal and neonatal medicine bringing a new generation into the world - a generation of babies without precedent, who would not have lived if they had been born only a few decades ago. Olivia Gordon explores the female experience of medicine through her own personal story and sensitive, intimate case histories of other mothers’ high-risk births. She details the relationship mothers develop with doctors who hold not only life and death in their hands but also the very possibility of birth.

What do you do when the unthinkable happens? Elle Wright had an admittedly easy pregnancy - her scans went well, she and her baby were healthy throughout, and in May 2016, she and her husband welcomed their son, Teddy, into the world. Just a few hours after giving birth, they woke to find a nurse holding a cold and unresponsive Teddy, who had stopped breathing during the night. The happiest day of Elle's life had turned into every parent's worst nightmare, and she had to let her beautiful baby boy go.

Today I sat on a bench facing the sea, the one where I waited for L to be born, and sobbed my heart out. I don't know if I'll ever recover. This note was written on 9th November 2017. As the seagulls squawked overhead and the sun dipped into the sea, Alexandra Heminsley's world was turning inside out. She'd just been told her then-husband was going to transition. The revelation threatened to shatter their brand new, still fragile, family.

I'm Jen Brister, stand-up comedian, middle-aged adolescent and, more recently, a mum. But not that mum - I'm the other one. Confused? Let’s back up a bit. Two years ago, my partner (a woman - we're not solicitors) gave birth to twins. Like every new parent, I had absolutely no clue what I was doing. Add ‘gay’ and ‘non-biological’ to the mix and what do you get? Not a weird box of detergent, but a panicked beige lesbian desperately googling, ‘Will my babies love me?’ at 3 a.m. This is a book for any parent who feels they don’t fit the mould of a traditional 2.4 family.

In March 2020, Michael Rosen became unwell. Soon he was struggling to breathe, and he was admitted to hospital with coronavirus. What followed was months on the wards: a month in an induced coma, and weeks of rehab and recovery as the NHS saved his life, and then got him back on his feet. Throughout it all, a diary was kept at the end of Michael's bed, where his nurses wrote him letters of hope and support. And as soon as he was awake, he was ready to start writing his own story. 

When Lisa Faulkner learned that she wouldn’t have biological children, her plans and expectations for her life were derailed. But, in the months and years that followed, she discovered that there was more than one way to build a family - and that there is a lot of joy to be found in life’s unexpected detours. In a raw and inspiring story of one woman’s journey through motherhood, family life and self-discovery, Lisa explores the many forms that family can take and discovers the power of embracing your plan B.

As a doctor running the intensive care unit at one of London's top hospitals, Jim Down has spent his life working as healthcare's last resort, where the unexpected is always around the corner and life and death decisions are an everyday occurrence. But nothing had prepared Jim and his team for the events of spring 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic descended. 

Mother to five children, Clover Stroud has navigated family life across two decades, both losing and finding herself. In her touching, provocative and profoundly insightful book, she captures a sense of what motherhood really feels like - how intense, sensuous, joyful, boring, profound and dark it can be. My Wild and Sleepless Nights examines what it means to be a mother, and reveals with unflinching honesty the many conflicting emotions that this entails: the joy and the wonder, the loneliness and despair. 

Part memoir, part manifesto, and including chapters on dating, work, sport, babies, families, anger and friendship, it is based on the simple premise that understanding why we fail ultimately makes us stronger. It's an audiobook about learning from our mistakes and about not being afraid. Uplifting, inspiring and rich in stories from Elizabeth’s own life, How to Fail reveals that failure is not what defines us; rather it is how we respond to it that shapes us as individuals.

After her grandmother died, Hadley Freeman travelled to her apartment to try and make sense of a woman she’d never really known. Sala Glass was a European expat in America – defiantly clinging to her French influences, famously reserved, fashionable to the end – yet to Hadley much of her life remained a mystery. Sala’s experience of surviving one of the most tumultuous periods in modern history was never spoken about.

Blythe Connor doesn't want history to repeat itself. Violet is her first child and she will give her daughter all the love she deserves. All the love that her own mother withheld. But firstborns are never easy. And Violet is demanding and fretful. She never smiles. Soon Blythe believes she can do no right - that something's very wrong. Either with her daughter, or herself. Her husband, Fox, says she's imagining it. But Violet's different with him. And he can't understand what Blythe suffered as a child. No one can. Blythe wants to be a good mother. 

Laura Dockrill had an idyllic pregnancy and couldn't wait to meet her new baby. But as she went into labour things began to go wrong, and Laura started to struggle. A traumatic birth, anxiety about the baby, sleep deprivation, a slow recovery - all these things piled up until Laura (like any new mum) felt overwhelmed.

Rachel is a palliative care doctor who cared for the most gravely unwell patients on the Covid-19 wards of her hospital. Amid the tensions, fatigue and rising death toll, she witnessed the courage of patients and NHS staff alike in conditions of unprecedented adversity. For all the bleakness and fear, she found that moments that could stop you in your tracks abounded. People who rose to their best, upon facing the worst, as a microbe laid waste to the population. Her new book, Breathtaking, is an unflinching insider's account of medicine in the time of coronavirus. 

Adam and Rachel are getting married at last. Childhood sweethearts whose lives and families have been intertwined for years; theirs is set to be the wedding of the year. But then Rachel's cousin Ellie makes an unexpected return to the family fold. As the long-awaited wedding approaches, Adam is torn between duty and temptation, security and freedom, and must make a choice that will break either one heart, or many.