Obstetrix
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected Jun 9, 2026
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
From the Hugo award-winning author Naomi Kritzer comes a tense portrait of a future we desperately hope to escape.
A Most Anticipated Book: Nerd Daily | Goodreads
O Lord, deliver us.
Doctor Liz has just been acquitted for performing the last abortion in North Dakota when she's kidnapped.
They're not just any kidnappers, but a fundamentalist cult, deep in the rural west, without respect for law or decency, and in desperate need of an OB/GYN.
Guarded, isolated, without access to the outside world, Liz nevertheless is treated with respect as the only doctor on the compound, but she is very aware of what happened to the last obstetrician they kidnapped.
She must escape, and bring help to the girls trapped at the compound, if it's the last thing she does.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this intriguing if messy novella from Kritzer (Liberty's Daughter), obstetrician Elizabeth Gwinn is abducted by a religious cult after performing an abortion in North Dakota at the request of a pregnant woman whose kidneys were failing. Liz was criminally charged for the procedure, then acquitted, but the ordeal moved her to seek new employment. A promising opportunity arises when Sarah Smith of the Prairie Spring Home Birth Collective asks to interview Liz for a consulting position. The invite turns out to be a pretext: the soda Sarah offers Liz is drugged, and she awakens as she's being transported to a compound at an undisclosed location. The community there, led by the sadistic Pastor John, is required to abide by harsh restrictions, including a ban on books, phones, and the internet, and Liz is cautioned that if she doesn't cooperate by tending to the needs of the group's pregnant members, she'll end up dead like her predecessor. Liz searches desperately for a way to escape, even as the cruelties of Pastor John's regime grow more horrifying. Kritzer's premise feels chillingly plausible, but she deflates the impact somewhat with a lackluster climax. Still, it's a tense and timely tale.
