Ambition

Ambition is a theme of this novel on several levels. First, it is ambition that causes Kate to spend a great deal of time at work rather than taking a job with fewer hours so she can be with her daughter. Ambition is also the motivating factor that causes Daniel Moore, a colleague of Kate’s, to try to ruin both Kate and Jeremy after learning of their long forgotten one night stand. Finally, ambition plays a small part in Amelia’s decision to tell Woodhouse everything about the Magpies on the final day of her life.

Kate is a law school student when she finds herself pregnant with her first child. Alone and without any romantic prospects, Kate makes the radical decision to have her child. Kate struggles, but makes the conscious choice not to allow her child to stop her from having the stellar...