The Surrogate

The last surrogate vanished before the birth. Mara is carrying the next child - and no one who signs with the family at Ashcroft ever truly leaves.

Buried in debt after her mother's death, Mara Ellison once read contracts for a living - every clause, every line of fine print. So when an agency offers her more money than she has ever seen to carry a child for the wealthy family at Ashcroft, their estate above the sea, she reads the agreement twice before she signs. She is certain she knows exactly what she has agreed to.

She is wrong.

At Ashcroft the care never stops. Her days are measured, her meals prepared, her medication counted out by a silent nurse. And everywhere she looks, Mara finds traces of the woman who came before her - Cara, the surrogate no one will talk about, who packed a bag one stormy night and was never seen again. The family says Cara was fragile. Unstable. Unreliable. Lately they have started saying it about Mara too.

But Mara notices what she is not meant to notice: a pill that has quietly changed, a number that doesn't add up, a clause written to be signed and never read. And the closer she comes to the truth about Cara, the clearer it becomes that at Ashcroft only one thing matters more than the surrogate - the child she carries. She has until delivery to prove what happened in this house. Because there is always a next one.

A psychological thriller about debt, motherhood, and the fine print no one is meant to read.