Ghost Mother by Kelly Dwyer

Synopsis

Ghost Mother is a mesmerizing psychological ghost story that blurs the thin line between reality and delusion.

Lilly Bly desperately wants to have a baby. She is struggling with infertility and bad spending habits when her husband, Jack, gets a new job that moves them from Chicago to a small town in Wisconsin. Impractical Lilly falls in love with a decrepit mansion well out of their price range—she is convinced that she will finally get pregnant and have a baby in this house—and Jack reluctantly agrees to buy the wreck. But when Lilly learns that her dream house was the site of a gruesome triple homicide/suicide in the 1950s, she begins to experience strange occurrences that soon lead her to believe the house is haunted. Are her ghostly encounters real, or is this a cascading mental breakdown? As Lilly learns more about the deaths and her visions become increasingly vivid, her relationship with Jack deteriorates, leading to a dramatic and irreversible climax.

Perfect for fans of classic, gothic horror fiction, like Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw and Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, as well as contemporary suspense and horror fiction by everyone from Stephen King to Ruth Ware.

Release Date

8/6/2024

Overall Rating

4/5

Spooky Rating

3/5

Quick Take

Ghost Mother by Kelly Dwyer is many things at once. It explores pregnancy loss in all forms, infertility, and trauma, while pairing it with a gothic haunted house and psychological horror. Lilly Bly is such a wonderful unreliable narrator and unhinged woman, and I still don’t know what was real or not. That sense of insecurity about the truth is absolutely delectable in horror novels, and I ate it up!

Tell Me More

There are some books that come along and hit you straight in the chest, Ghost Mother did just that.

Ghost Mother is a novel that comes packing. It is a lot, but in the best way! It combines motherhood horror, psychological horror, and classic gothic themes with an unhinged female narrator, Lilly, who is extremely unreliable. But it also focuses on heavy topics such as abortion, miscarriage, infertility, trauma, shopping addiction, suicide, murder, and so much more.

When I have read motherhood horror before, I found that many of them tend to mirror Rosemary’s Baby, and there is not a ton of variation. But Kelly Dwyer broke the subgenre by incorporating a haunted house story and murder mystery while exploring all sides of motherhood and pregnancy. It is one of the only books that I have read that openly discusses abortion in a way that is not preachy or opinionated and respects the loss that many people feel after having an abortion. As a survivor of an unwanted abortion myself and having had to mourn in silence for so many years, this was extremely therapeutic for me. Miscarriage is also openly discussed, and I loved how Dwyer highlighted these aspects of pregnancy in such a blatant way without sugarcoating any of it. It was painful and uncomfortable, but so cathartic. Based on how much it impacted me, I have a feeling it will do the same for many others. Just be sure to check the content warnings, because there is some graphic imagery of lost fetuses that may be triggering for some readers.

The haunting aspect of the story, and the concept of being a “ghost mother” were explored in a few different ways, such as being a mother to ghost children, which I found fascinating. The haunting imagery and backstory reminded me a lot of Theme Music by T. Marie Vandelly, which I loved, and the history of the tragedy that occurred in the house filled my gothic horror loving heart.

However, I gave this book 4 stars instead of 5 because there were so many concepts involved, and they weren’t all fully developed (I would have loved to have seen more of the circus past of the house explored.) This, paired with the unreliable aspect of Lilly’s narrative, made it hard to follow at times. However, the ending floored me, and even though I still am unsure what was truth or fiction, it was interesting to see a “happy ending” end up being so bizarre. This redefined exactly what it means to have a “happy ending,” and how different that is for everyone.

It is so hard to fully summarize my thoughts on this novel as I have so many, but all I can say is read it for yourself and see how it impacts you. It is unlike any other motherhood horror novel I have read, and I was so happy to experience such a refreshing take. I can’t wait to read more of Dwyer’s work!