Thirty years after my parents were pressured into placing me with an adoption agency, I finally reconnected with them. But it was nothing like the neat stories you see on TV

One morning in late September 2023, I discovered by chance that my birth mother had been killed almost a year earlier. The revelation came while I was searching my work email for a stray message. In the bin folder, amid a slurry of irrelevant press releases, lay an unopened email, ­flagging a long-forgotten Google alert I had set up for her name, Susan Barras. We had been estranged for almost 15 years, so this in itself provoked trepidation. I had cut contact with her when our relationship had finally become too fraught and emotionally ­exhausting for me to continue. Opening the email, I realised with shock that the alert had been triggered by a probate notice about her estate.

Susan was only 69 when she died, and my first thought was that the breast cancer she was being treated for when we were in touch had returned. My second was the realisation that both my birth parents were now dead – my birth father had died of liver failure in late 2018, aged 70. But then the unfamiliar name listed on the probate notice, Suzann Doyle, captured my attention. Underneath this was confirmation that my birth mother had changed her name. Her address at the time of her death posed further questions. It was not that of the large detached house in Guildford I had visited just once, a few months after we were reunited, where she had lived with her husband. This address was for a tiny one-bed retirement flat overlooking Guildford train station.

After critics and authors picked their top 100 novels we asked for your favourites. From Uruguay to the Isle of Skye, more than 3,000 readers cast their votes. Here’s your list – topped by a new number 1

• Read about your choices here

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100

A wonderful thing happened on a visit to the new V&A East: a very public, taxpayer-funded soundtrack of my life

This is surreal. I’m standing in the new home of one of Britain’s most historically august cultural institutions, and it looks and feels for all the world like a silent disco.

There is a middle-aged white woman to my right, staring intently ahead, swaying gently and bobbing her head as rhythmically as the giant headphones covering her ears will allow. Behind me there is a young black woman, her hair pulled back to give the headset and whatever she is listening to untrammelled passage. She is swaying, rising a bit, then falling: in the room but in a world of her own. Behind me, I see a muscular guy of mixed heritage; his ripped torso is still, his head of braided hair is not, and his face gently creases as he smiles about what he is hearing. My feet are planted, but I’m aware that I’m giddy, as if slightly drunk. There we are, imbibing different musical clips of different things in different bits of semi-darkened galleries, and yet it is a shared endeavour.

The UK’s biggest bird of prey has been compared to a flying barn door. So how can one fitted with a satellite tracker disappear in prime grouse-shooting country?

The six police officers arrived at the Snilesworth estate in two pickup trucks last week, according to one account. They asked to go up on the moors, a source said, and “so off they went”.

A vast expanse of spectacularly undulating lands on the western edge of the North York Moors, Snilesworth is globally renowned for its grouse, partridge and pheasant shooting. It is known locally for attracting “rich people from London in helicopters and blacked-out SUVs”.

Laurine, who works in forensics, meets Theo, a financial adviser. They are both 27

What were you hoping for?
Love! Or someone new, great conversation, a free dinner and feature in my favourite Guardian column.

A botched tumbler promotion on the anniversary of a pro-democracy massacre unleashed a boycott, police investigation and political firestorm

It was a PR nightmare: customers smashing Starbucks branded tumblers and mugs as fans deleted loyalty apps and cashed out prepaid balances. Amid the uproar, government ministries cut ties with the coffee chain and apology notices were pasted on Starbucks stores across South Korea.

The initial shock may have passed, but the anger remains.

Conditions that led to bloody prewar protests have been made worse, commentators say

Iran is already preparing for the perilous transition from wartime unity to a fractious peace marked by hyperinflation, a 10% contraction in the economy, power cuts and calls for a triumphalist government to end its unprecedented hunting down of dissent.

With peace not yet secured, the debates within the regime about Iran’s future are only just starting to emerge but its rulers are clearly thinking about how after surviving the war, they can survive the peace.

HMS Prince of Wales expected to sail ‘in the coming days’ according to British government spokesperson

A technical issue has been detected on the UK navy’s flagship as it was docked in Norway, after the warship worked with Nato and the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF), the government has said.

Earlier this month, the HMS Prince of Wales – one of Britain’s two flagship aircraft carriers built for £6.4bn – set sail for Nordic waters from Loch Long, Argyll and Bute, Scotland, to provide security in the Atlantic and High North regions.

• Backroom staff denied entry visas for US, claims post on X

• Team have moved training base from Arizona to Mexico

Iran has slammed World Cup co-hosts the United States over what it called “discriminatory treatment” by not granting visas for some members of the Iranian national team’s delegation to attend the tournament.

“Why do you not say that visas were denied to a large portion of the managerial and executive staff, technical advisers, and others who are an integral part of any national football team?” the Iranian embassy in Turkey said in a post on X, referring to an earlier announcement by the US envoy Tom Barrack that visas had been granted to players.

Exclusive: Labour’s Makerfield byelection candidate advocates public ownership of water companies as he prepares for potential leadership bid

Thames Water should be nationalised, Andy Burnham has said, revealing public ownership of water companies would “absolutely be an option” under his potential leadership of the Labour party.

Burnham, Labour’s candidate in the Makerfield byelection, has previously called for “greater public control” over the companies. In an interview with the Guardian, he has confirmed this could mean nationalisation.