No Child of Mine by Nichelle Giraldes

 

There's something in the dark. And it's starting to whisper...
Essie Kaur has defined herself by her ambitions, a fiercely independent woman whose only soft spot is her husband, Sanjay. She never imagined herself as a mother. It was never a part of the plan. But then she finds out she's pregnant. As her difficult pregnancy transforms her body and life into something she barely recognizes, her husband spends the nights pacing in the attic, slowly becoming a stranger, and the house begins to whisper.

As Essie's pregnancy progresses, both her and Sanjay's lives are warped by a curse that has haunted her family for generations, leaving a string of fatherless daughters in its wake. When she's put on bedrest, Essie trades the last aspects of her carefully planned life for isolation in what should be a welcoming home, but she isn't alone. There's something here that means to take everything from her…

No Child Of Mine is told on two timelines. In the current day, we have Essie and her husband Sanjay, and several generations earlier we have Ana and Isabelle, two women who were profoundly in love in the days when it was just impossible for women to be together.

From the book's description I was expecting a scary read but mostly what I got was a love story interspersed with bouts of morning sickness. Or morning noon and night sickness since poor Essie seemed to be plagued with vomiting at all hours of the day and night, and although I remember what that feels like from my own experience, it did get a bit repetitive to read about crackers and nausea and bile for so many pages.

I enjoyed the characters from the past more than the present day and learning how the curse came to be. An awful curse born of both love and selfishness has taken fathers from their daughters for generations in Essie's family.

 I had hoped there would be some spookiness in Essie's new house but other than some whispering and an object occasionally being displaced nothing much happened. Even when the curse began to take hold there wasn't any suspense. The ending seemed too simplistic after so many generations had suffered this curse.

You may enjoy this one more than I did, but it just wasn't for me.

My thanks to Poisoned Pen Press.