Mother Is Watching
A Novel
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- $199.00
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- $199.00
Descripción editorial
Mother is always watching...
From the #1 international bestselling author of Recipe For A Perfect Wife comes a chilling horror debut: When a pregnant art conservator’s obsession with a mysterious painting spirals into a nightmarish descent, the line between reality and the supernatural shatters threatening both her sanity and her life.
In a world shaped by climate crisis and population decline, motherhood has become both prized and quietly monitored. For thirty-nine-year-old art conservator Mathilde "Tilly" Crewson that has meant years spent struggling to conceive, while navigating the growing social pressure surrounding women's bodies and reproduction.
When Tilly is tasked with restoring The Mother, a fire-damaged painting believed to be the final work of a grieving surgeon-turned artist, she becomes consumed by its disturbing history. Soon after, Tilly discovers she's unexpectedly pregnant and it isn't long before the horrors begin: swarms of insects, whispers in the dark, visits from her dead mother, and an increasingly terrifying bond with the painting itself.
As the malevolence intensifies, Tilly fears the forces surrounding The Mother are not only feeding on her, but on the life growing inside her. To save herself and her family, she may have to destroy the painting once and for all.
But The Mother has plans of its own.
Perfect for fans of Nightbitch and The School for Good Mothers, this unsettling novel explores the intersection between motherhood, art and ambition, and the terror of losing control over one's body and mind.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Brown (Recipe for a Perfect Wife) successfully blends horror and science fiction to offer a peek into an all too plausible dystopian future. A recent pandemic has devastated male fertility rates and led to extreme population decline. In its wake, pressure is placed on women to have as many children as possible, with wearable AI fertility trackers used to monitor women's menstrual cycles. Against this backdrop, art conservator Mathilde Crewson balances her job with raising a young daughter, Clementine, grieving a recent miscarriage, and desperately trying to conceive another baby with her controlling husband, Wyatt. Mathilde receives the assignment of her dreams when she is tasked with restoring a painting titled The Mother by an obscure artist who died violently. After getting pregnant, finishing her new assignment before giving birth becomes a race against time—but sinister things start happening as her work progresses, all perhaps connected to the possibly haunted painting. The danger and mystery only increase as Mathilde begins to doubt her own perceptions. Brown packs a lot into the narrative and there are some loose threads left dangling at the end, but, for the most part, it all comes together beautifully. A riveting and insightful ghost story about parental grief and bodily autonomy, this is sure to linger with readers long after the final page.
