The Child's Child

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

{{Infobox novel

| image = TheChildsChild.jpg

| caption = First edition (publ. Scribner, US)

| author = Barbara Vine

| pub_date = December 4, 2012

| isbn = 978-1-451-69489-5

| publisher = Scribner

}}

The Child's Child is the 14th novel written by Ruth Rendell under the pseudonym Barbara Vine, and the first such novel in 4 years,{{Cite web |date=October 22, 2012 |title=The Child's Child |url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/barbara-vine/childs-child/ |access-date=August 13, 2024 |website=Kirkus Reviews}}{{cite web |last=Flood |first=Alison |date=1 March 2013 |title=Ruth Rendell: a life in writing |url=https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2013/mar/01/ruth-rendell-life-in-writing |publisher=13 August 2024 |via=The Guardian}} since 2008's The Birthday Present. The novel was published in the United States in December 2012 and in the UK by Penguin Viking in March 2013.{{cite web |title=Book review: The Child's Child by Barbara Vine |url=https://www.scotsman.com/arts-and-culture/books/book-review-the-child-s-child-by-barbara-vine-1-2828601 |website=The Scotsman}}{{dead link|date=May 2024}} In a number of interviews Rendell has intimated that this will be the last novel she writes under the Vine pseudonym.

The narrator of the novel is a Grace Easton, a university lecturer writing a PhD thesis about unmarried mothers in Victorian literature. Grace shares a house inherited from their grandmother with her gay brother Andrew.{{cite news |last1=Marilyn Stasio |author-link=Marilyn Stasio |title=Element of Surprise |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/23/books/review/the-childs-child-by-barbara-vine-and-more.html |accessdate=19 October 2020 |work=The New York Times |date=December 21, 2012}}