No Child of Mine

July 3, 2023
A family curse spanning multiple generations turns a young wife’s difficult pregnancy into a gothic nightmare in Giraldes’s underplotted debut thriller spun from two alternating narrative threads. In one, Essie, a law student in her final year of studies, and her architect husband, Sanjay, have just moved into their first house when Essie discovers that she is unexpectedly pregnant. In the other, set in an unspecified (but presumably 19th-century) past, the newly married Isabel schemes to save her lover, Ana, and Ana’s newborn daughter, Maria, from the clutches of Ana’s abusive husband. Readers will quickly intuit that the family “curse” which Essie’s mother and grandmother have warned her about—that women in their family give birth only to female children, and then lose their husbands within the year that follows—is the consequence of unholy negotiations that Isabel, their forebear, made to rescue Ana. Though the inevitable convergence of the two story lines keeps the pages turning, Giraldes’s frustratingly circumspect treatment of the shadowy supernatural forces behind the curse offers little insight into their nature and motives. As a result, the resolution feels hasty and improbable. Horror fans will be underwhelmed. Agent: Claire Friedman, InkWell Management.

June 10, 2024

Giraldes's debut novel features a generation-spanning curse, but its real terror comes from the mundane. Essie Kaur has just bought a house with her husband, Sanjay. The young couple is looking forward to their new lives together until Essie gets the unexpected news that she is pregnant. Not overjoyed with the prospect, Essie tries to keep attending law school while battling morning sickness and the sudden, forceful rewrite of her life plans. But there's also a curse hanging over Essie's lineage, which could doom Sanjay and their burgeoning family before it's even started. The story features two timelines, moving back and forth between Essie's struggles in the modern world and Ana and Isabelle's secret love in the past. While occasionally intriguing, the past narrative and its accompanying supernatural elements seem extraneous to the main plot and may draw some listeners out of the story. Narrators Mia Hutchinson-Shaw, Lauren Ezzo, and Lindsey Dorcus provide the three women with separate and distinct voices, but Essie's struggles drive the story. VERDICT Though Giraldes's tale is sometimes dragged down by its ghosts, readers of domestic horror will likely respond to the depiction of an increasingly isolated expectant mother.--James Gardner

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