it’s PHENOMENAL! Disturbingly perfect! Oh. My. Dearest! I loved it. Even now, days later, I’m still thinking about it. Honestly, for such a short book, it packs a punch! My heart will always be with Flora, what a brilliantly written character. I related and connected to her more than I excepted. The struggles of motherhood & societal expectations can make you feel like a failure, so to be alone during this time, I don’t know how I would have coped. I struggle writing (decent) reviews about books I loved because I want to highlight the aspects that either terrified me, disgusted me or even broke my heart so you can fully understand the pure brilliance of the story but I can’t so I’ll break it down. What I loved (everything!) *Writing style *Pacing *The twists *Characters *The descriptions *Short, dynamic chapters *The horror elements *POV *Word meaning explanation And most importantly, how it made me feel. I went through every emotion and spent the majority of the time on edge. I even cried. It’s beautiful, disturbing, real, raw, heartbreaking and damn near perfect. This now one of my favourites ever!

Yes, I read a horror book, a dark supernatural story which gives you a real shiver down the spine! Flora is mother to newly born Iris and living on her own in Vermont whilst her husband Connor is on service abroad. She is not coping at all well and is suffering from PND or something similar. Her only friend is Zephie! A well written and well constructed story with some very interesting characters. Briefly, Flora is desperate and asking for help she contacts her estranged mother Jodi who she hasn’t seen for years. Suddenly Jodi is on the doorstep and matters go seriously downhill from there, insects infestation and strange voices on the baby monitor just for starters! I’m not and have never been a parent so my emotions may have been different to anyone who has a child, however, I can confirm that this is not a book I would recommend reading late at night. If you like your books, dark and scary, I think you’ll like this. A very good debut horror novel, creepy, full of suspense and palpable tension - one to give you a good adrenaline rush. Entertaining read and whilst not my normal sort of read it was compelling.

Flora's husband is working away, leaving her with new baby Iris. Like any new mum, it's a challenge for her, managing alone. However tough being a lone parent is, that's nothing compared to the horror that was to come.... Her only human contact for a while are the video calls with husband Connor from his undisclosed location, wherever in the world he has been deployed. The only other presence in her big rambling empty house is the occasional beetle scurrying around..isolated with a newborn, the house starts to close in around her. Flora's childhood nightmares return to haunt her. As does her childhood imaginary friend, Zephie. Is Flora being haunted, or is her sleep deprived imagination playing tricks. Scared and alone, Flora reaches out to her estranged, cold, emotionless mother, who to Flora's surprise, turns up at the house, and with her comes no end of horror. This book covers you with waves of fear and dread, it's full of suspense and menace as it explores two faces of motherhood. One of nurture, protection and something far bigger than love, the other is sinister, threat and danger. But which mother is which.. Thank you lovely @jwalterswrites and the fab @zaffrebooks also @netgally for this amazingly exciting and wonderfully disturbingly thriller of a novel

One thing that is so great about the horror genre is it truly allows you to dive into the deepest parts of yourselves and allows you to put onto page manifestations of your darkest thoughts or moments. It's a genre that I think, more so than any other, really allows authors to be raw with themselves and the reader in a visceral way. This book to me felt like one big metaphor about how scary early motherhood can be, how you don't feel that you can do anything right, how some things don't come naturally the way people tell you it will, and how much you change as a person after going through the 9-month ordeal of pregnancy and labour. This book was able to put the fears of motherhood out there right from the first page and you watch as the main character slips more and more away from herself. The writing so easily plots the downward spiral of Flora and you are genuinely scared to turn the page as you have no idea what to expect next. I felt this was a really good look into post-partum depression and post-partum psychosis and I felt the supernatural horror elements of this novel served as more of a metaphor for complex post-partum experiences and through this novel were we able to address the experiences of mothers going through those kind of things. It's not THE representation of post-partum experiences but I do think through this book you can see the connections the author is trying to make. It was that part of the book that I found the most engaging. It is a raw study into early motherhood as well as a horror novel as well. It also serves as a novel to unpack complex mother-daughter relationships. The relationship between Flora and her mother Jodi is a relationship that I feel many people will connect with, the toxicity, the passive aggressiveness, and the lack of agency as your own being. Merging this complex dynamic in a book with strong PTSD themes makes for one emotional and slightly volatile novel that had me engaged from the first page.