Mother Is Watching - Hardcover

Mother Is Watching is a printed horror novel, not a download: a conservator restores a burned painting and the painting starts restoring her.

Karma Brown sets it a few years from now, in a country where birth rates have collapsed and pregnancy has quietly become something the state takes an interest in.

The setup

Tilly Crewson, thirty nine and an art conservator, takes on a fire damaged canvas called The Mother. She discovers she is pregnant, and the insects and the whispering start.

Good to know

Reviews split on pace. Several readers found the first half slow and the ending worth it, so this is atmosphere horror rather than incident horror.

From the publisher

The chilling horror debut from a #1 international bestselling author--an art conservator's obsession with a mysterious painting spirals into a nightmarish descent, where the line between reality and the supernatural shatters, threatening both her sanity and her life Mathilde "Tilly" Crewson, a thirty-nine-year-old mother and art conservator, is tasked with restoring The Mother.

The painting, believed to be the work of a female surgeon-turned-artist after a personal tragedy, is the rumored fourth piece in a collection of only three known works. But this newly discovered painting, scarred by fire, holds more than meets the eye.

Soon after receiving the painting, Tilly discovers she's unexpectedly pregnant, and strange, inexplicable occurrences begin: terrifying insect swarms, eerie visits from her long-deceased mother, and sinister whispers that invade her mind.

As these malevolent forces intensify, Tilly comes to a harrowing realization: the only way to sever the perilous bond she shares with the painting is to destroy it. But The Mother has plans of her own--and they're darker than Tilly could ever imagine. . .

.