Excerpt from The Last Days of Rabbit Hayes by Anna McPartlin, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

The previous day, an oncologist had sat Molly and her husband Jack down in a small yellow room that smelt of antibacterial soap. When they were settled in their seats, he had destroyed them with one sentence. 'We're looking at short weeks rather than long months.' The room fell into complete and total silence. Molly stared at the man's face and waited for the punch-line that never came. Jack remained motionless. It was as though life had just left him and he was slowly turning to stone. She didn't argue. The only two words she uttered were 'Thank you', when the oncologist booked Rabbit's place in the hospice. She felt the weight of Jack's stare. It was as though she was disappearing right in front of his eyes and he was wondering how he would navigate the new reality without his wife. Give me time to think, old man. They had no questions – at least, none that the man sitting opposite could answer.

The silence had allowed Molly to do some thinking of her own. It was time to retreat: she needed to arm herself with more information, and she had to come up with a plan, start a new conversation. She was not about to give up, no way. Rabbit Hayes might be dying but she was not going to die because Molly was going to find a way to save her. She wouldn't talk about it, just do it. In the meantime, she'd play the game. The clock was against them: Rabbit was slipping away. No time for talking.

Staying quiet was unusual for Molly, who liked to talk and battle things out even when she was full sure she wouldn't receive a conclusion or an answer. In the early days after Rabbit's diagnosis, she had often taken herself down to the church to abuse God. Prepared for no answers, she'd asked a lot of questions, shaking her fist at the altar and once even giving the finger to a statue of the Baby Jesus.

'Where's your deals now, God?' she had screamed, in her empty local church, one day a year before, when Rabbit's cancer had returned in her right breast and had metastasized into her liver. 'You want the second breast? Take it, you greedy bastard, but don't you dare take my girl. Do you hear me, ya—'

'Ah, there you are, Molly.' Father Frank had appeared out of thin air and pushed himself into the seat beside her. He rubbed his bad knee and put his hand to his grey hair, then knelt and leaned on the pew. She remained seated. He looked forward, saying nothing.

'Not now,' she'd said.

'I heard.'

'And . . .'

'You're angry, and you wanted to give the Baby Jesus the finger.' He shook his head.

'How did you know that?' Molly asked, surprised and a little unnerved.

'Sister Veronica was polishing the tabernacle.'

'I didn't see her.'

'She's like a ninja, that one.' Now he rubbed his head. She wondered if he was getting a migraine – he suffered a lot with it. 'Molly,' he said, in a more serious tone, 'I understand.'

'No, you don't, Frank.'

'My mother died of cancer.'

'Your mother was ninety-two.'

'Love is love, Molly.'

'No, it isn't, and if you lived a life with love in it as opposed to simply preaching it, you'd understand that. You've never been a husband or father so, God love you, Frank, of all the people to try to comfort me, you really haven't a clue.'

'If that's the way you feel, Molly.'

'It is, and I'm sorry for it.' She got up, leaving Father Frank dumbstruck. She hadn't darkened the church door since. But Molly still prayed; she still believed.

Still, this emergency needed something more rational than prayer. She'd been researching Rabbit's condition for four years. She'd looked at all the studies, the new drugs, the various trials, and knew more about genetic mapping than a secondyear laboratory student. There's something we haven't thought about, something we're missing. It's on the tip of me tongue. I just need to concentrate, work out the problem. It's going to be OK.

Excerpted from The Last Days of Rabbit Hayes by Anna McPartlin. Copyright © 2015 by Anna McPartlin. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.