It isn’t often I pick up a book, read it, and find myself in complete agreement with the glowing review on the jacket. Sara Collins’s quotes “I loved it and could not put it down” – is in this case, exactly right.

The author of ‘Inconceivable’ is a director of television documentaries and her account of her own family’s journey through infertility and genetics unfolds with the pacing and emotional depth of a riveting drama.

As someone who has witnessed, in my own practice, the suffering caused by infertility, unknown ancestry, secrets of paternal identity and the increasingly common shocks revealed by DNA testing kits, I found her story both familiar and profoundly moving.

Coxon’s starting point is her father’s adoption – She simply wanted to learn more about his ancestry. What she discovers sends shockwaves through the rest of the book. She is herself a triplet, conceived through the pioneering work of Patrick Steptoe, Robert Edwards and Jean Purdy. The book offers an informative and compelling account of the history of IVF, including the resistance and prejudice it faced. The shame and disapproval surrounding assisted conception led many parents to conceal and still conceal the origins of their children’s birth – a stigma the Catholic Church, notably, still officially upholds.

Coxon also writes with unflinching honesty about her own experience of endometriosis, a condition that remains poorly understood and diagnosed, despite being a major cause of infertility. She does not spare the reader the reality of it: the crippling pain, the frightening blood loss, the toll it takes on daily life, work and intimacy. More than physical suffering, she describes how her diagnosis cast a long shadow over her relationships and her hopes of becoming a mother. Her account is difficult to read – but necessary.

Without wishing to spoil what she does discover through her DNA kit, I will say that her dilemma – what to share, with whom and when is central to her narrative. She writes with hard-won wisdom about the weight of secrets and the complicated relief that can result from honesty.

Coxon makes no promise happy endings. What she offers is something richer: a sustained argument, borne out through her own lived experience, that family is far more than blood and DNA. Against the background of potential trauma, she is sustained by the love and warmth of her remarkable family – and that in the end is the book’s quiet triumph.