“These are not my babies…”

Everyone says Lauren Tranter is exhausted, that she needs rest. And they’re right; with newborn twins, Morgan and Riley, she’s never been more tired in her life. But she knows what she saw: that night, in her hospital room, a woman tried to take her babies and replace them with her own…creatures. Yet when the police arrived, they saw no one. Everyone, from her doctor to her husband, thinks she’s imagining things.

Golding constructs a background inspired by many of our darkest fairy tales which will leave you shivering, wondering and even checking. The strongest elements of this compelling novel are the explorations of the boundaries and valleys between postpartum depression and a dark and sinister fairy-tale. The reality of depression and the common feeling of not being entirely sure what is real and what is influenced by your mental state overlaps throughout and I think that’s what kept me hooked on this book.

I wanted to find out the answers. I’m not entirely sure that we ever do – and isn’t that the case in real life? The reality is we all fear getting things wrong, messing things up and even losing a child – this book explores the very fine line between all of these nightmares and the reality that can occur.

The genre of this book baffled me.. at times I felt like i was enjoying a psychological thriller and in other moments it felt almost mystical and supernatural. In this case the issue of not being able to define what I was reading wasn’t frustrating – in fact it helped the book even more.

Investment in the main character – Lauren – is the key in this book. You will be invested, you will want her to come out on top…you will want her to be the successor in this story. That’s the beauty of Golding’s writing. She paints a character that could quite easily be you.