About This Book
Abby has spent years pursuing motherhood through every available avenue — fertility treatments, failed adoptions, hope repeatedly deferred. When her personal assistant offers to serve as a surrogate, it feels like the answer she's been waiting for. But as the pregnancy progresses, Abby begins to sense that the woman carrying her child is concealing something — and that whatever it is, it runs much deeper than a simple omission. McFadden engineers a slow-building dread around one of the most intimate vulnerabilities imaginable: trusting a stranger with the thing you want most.
McFadden keeps her chapters short and her revelations carefully timed, parceling out just enough to keep you turning pages while the full picture stays just out of reach. She writes dual perspectives with a clinical precision that makes both women feel unreliable without ever tipping into cheap manipulation. The pleasure here is watching two agendas collide in a confined space — the tension isn't in the action but in what each character isn't saying. Readers who appreciate psychological thrillers built on character psychology rather than shock twists will find this one particularly satisfying.
