The Surrogate Assignment

When a British journalist receives a desperate phone call from a woman whose sister and newborn baby have vanished inside war-torn Ukraine, he is pulled into an investigation that will test everything he believes about responsibility, truth, and human connection.

Aidan Baume, a health and medical correspondent, is accustomed to uncovering difficult stories. But nothing prepares him for the human cost of this one: a biological mother in the UK, a surrogate who travelled into a combat zone to be beside her injured Ukrainian partner; and a baby who may now be lost amid the chaos of war.

Teaming up with Boris, a Ukrainian driver who knows the country’s roads and dangers, Aidan embarks on a journey across borders, bombed cities, and shattered communities in search of answers.

The Surrogate Assignment is a tense, passionate novel about courage, moral responsibility, and the fragile bonds that connect strangers in extraordinary circumstances. Blending investigative journalism with deeply human storytelling, it explores parenthood, legality, and what it means to bear witness when no clear solutions exist. A powerful work that treats storytelling as an act of witness, and fiction as a collective memory.

The Surrogate Assignment is a story of walking in the ruins.