Juliet Stevenson continues Ian McEwan's powerful and haunting new novel, The Children Act - a story about faith, love and the Law and about the welfare of children and the duty of those who care for them.

Fiona Maye is an esteemed High Court Judge presiding over cases in the Family Court and admired for her 'godly distance and devilish understanding'. But beneath her professional composure, her happy marriage of thirty years is in trouble and recent cases have caused her heartache.

Should the secular court overrule sincerely held faith? What really lies in a child's best interests? When is a child still a child?

Today, off on the northern circuit, Fiona finds that her recent ruling that a child's welfare is best served by intervention is not so easily left behind.

Ian McEwan is one of the UK's leading novelists, his many novels include Atonement, Enduring Love and On Chesil Beach.

The reader is Juliet Stevenson
The abridger is Sally Marmion
The producer is Di Speirs. Show less