Inconceivable

By: Rebecca Coxon

A beautiful and timeless memoir about family in all its forms, from television documentary director, Rebecca Coxon.

'Moving, courageous, enlightening' ELIZABETH DAY

'Immaculately sculpted. I loved it and could not put it down’ SARA COLLINS

'An extraordinary story' TIMES MAGAZINE

‘My family tree is not simple; my lineage is not linear. There are the branches we see and the roots we do not. Not all bloodlines flow with blood.’

When Rebecca Coxon uploaded her genetic data to an ancestry website, she had no idea that it would start a chain reaction. The secrets revealed by her genes would alter Rebecca's understanding of identity and family forever … beginning with the shocking discovery that her father was not biologically related to her.

In this deeply honest and intimate memoir, Rebecca – a donor-conceived IVF triplet who has donated her eggs and undergone fertility treatment herself – shares her remarkable story. It’s one of family secrets, shame, resilience and warmth, offering a profound glimpse into the consequences of how we choose to create new life.

Written with nuance and tenderness, Inconceivable is both a beautiful meditation on our place within history and the wider universe, and a love letter to family in all its forms.

©2026 Rebecca Coxon (P)2026 HarperCollins Publishers

Critic reviews

'Moving, courageous and enlightening. Inconceivable is essential reading for anyone who believes that families are built from more than just blood. Quite simply, this is a book that needed to exist in the world' ELIZABETH DAY, author of ONE OF US

'A fascinating blend of memoir and investigative reporting, of science and love, with the page turning quality of a novel. The sentences feel immaculately sculpted, the sentiments feel universal yet beautifully specific. I loved it and could not put it down’ SARA COLLINS, author of THE CONFESSIONS OF FRANNIE LANGTON

'I found it fascinating — an impassioned and compassionate call for truth, however delicate and compromising it can be. I ended the book with the sense that, like one of the scientists whose work she so compellingly champions, Coxon has taken a microscope to life and conception and family, in all their fragile complexity' MARINA KEMP, author of THE UNWILDING

‘A sperm donor baby who finds out by accident, donates her own eggs and then ends up having IVF? It is an extraordinary story’ TIMES MAGAZINE

‘Coxon writes beautifully… The story is full of twists and dramatic reveals but it is the writing, and Coxon’s ability to integrate her own broad hinterland of experience and knowledge, that really make this fine book… fascinating… There are no neat endings, but there is one hell of a journey, during which she reflects, wisely and powerfully, on the most basic truths of family and love’ IRISH INDEPENDENT