First of all I would emphasise: do not read if you are pregnant or likely to be triggered by difficult scenes of miscarriage and childbirth. I was intrigued by the description of this book and to begin with I really liked it. However as the story went on it turned into supernatural horror, a genre which I do not like. My fault really as I should have taken heed of the reference to Rosemary's Baby on the description.

Anna is an actress on the cusp of real success. She's been nominated for an Oscar. However she desperately wants a baby and at last, after IVF, she is pregnant. At first all is well but then things start to go wrong. She misses appointments, loses medication, feels that she is being followed. These initially mildly disturbing things become more intense and sinister. Are the things happening to her real, is she being gaslighted or is it all in her mind?

This book wasn't really for me. It is very well written and there were parts when I thought I really liked it but the supernatural element is something I like to avoid. There were a lot of characters who were left undeveloped such as Adeline, Anna's husband's first wife. Having said that I did like the ending and this redeemed it in part for me. Overall though, I wasn't wowed, Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

Definitively not what I expected, it`s a supernatural Rosemary`s Baby type of book.
Not my type of book so not for me but if you like supernatural book it`s a good one.
It did keep me reading wondering who was the baddy and where it was going as the plot points at everyone.
The ending was a bit unbelievable.
To me it didn`t show lack of sympathy from Drs during pregnancy as the ending suggested.

Thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the ARC

Finally! A book without outrageously absurd twists!! Everything flows together much more naturally and you can slot the puzzle pieces in as you go along. The biggest mystery for me was whether or not it was going down the thriller or horror route but it definitely has a foot firmly in both camps. My preference is usually a slow burn, character driven story and even though this is more of a foot on the gas pedal style of storytelling, I was still very entertained. It was a lighter, easy read despite some important subject matter in there and I’d recommend this for fans of Weyward and Rosemary’s Baby.

I also think it’s important to read the authors note afterwards - it will absolutely ring true if you have had any kind of experience on the reproductive health front.

Wow, this is a disturbing book and I nearly gave up reading it because parts of it were making me scared and jumpy - I am a sensitive soul who never reads or watches horror lol.

I am glad that I persevered and finished it though, because it is a good and twisty story and more importantly, I think it is a book with a lot of interesting things to say about how society and the medical profession downplay the very real difficulties many women experience with regard to fertility, pregnancy and childbirth.

Having said that, I cannot say that I particularly enjoyed my reading experience. Some of the things that happen to Anna are both horrifying and harrowing and I hope they do not linger in my mind. The supernatural aspect with her thoughts and cravings are bad enough but we also have graphic descriptions of the IVF process and labour which make me so glad that I have never had the least desire to have a child. I had no idea that IVF is so painful and horrible - surely there must be a better way? I cannot begin to imagine why women put themselves through this.

In the afterword the author says that she hopes that women recognise some aspects of their own experiences in the book and that society, men and the medical profession change how they treat women and specifically female health issues and we can only hope that this happens.

This is a timely book given that we are now starting to understand that medicine is not gender neutral and is very much developed by men for men with very few doctors trying to understand that women's symptoms are not always the same as men and women and men react differently to drugs.

Although I did not "enjoy" the book as such, I feel that I have certainly benefited from reading it.

DELICATE CONDITION


Like a mix of both Stephen King and American Horror Story, Delicate Condition was a beautifully, dark novel.

Reading the synopsis of this book I knew I had to read it. And I was not disappointed.

Fantastically written with a fast pace it exceptionally blended between the thriller and horror genres, whilst still managing through thoughtful dialogue to deal with sensitive issues in pregnancy such as childbirth and even miscarriage.

Thank you #Netgalley and both the author Danielle Valentine and the publishers for my E-arc of #DelicateCondition giving me the opportunity to read this outstanding novel, in exchange for my honest review .

A superb novel an highly recommend.

I’ve recently enjoyed quite a few books relating to pregnancy and so the synopsis definitely intrigued me. I would say the pacing is a tad slow and the chapters in between will make very little sense until the end of the book. I did enjoy the book overall but I would say the genre this turns into towards the end isn’t really my sort of thing but I’ve no doubt this will be a well received book and this is just my personal preference.

Thanks to netgalley for providing an ecopy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

4⭐️

I’ve been picking up some great vibes on social media for this book, so was excited to check it out for myself. It’s listed as women’s fiction / mystery thriller.

Anna Alcott is in the public eye as an actress, the story follows her journey through IVF. Anna is desperate to become pregnant but increasingly suspicious that someone is trying to ensure that never happens.

Bullet points for Delicate Condition
📕unique storyline that ventures away from the ‘norm’ so you need to be open for something a bit different.
📕features IVF and may contain triggers for some
📕innovative plot

The storyline is innovative. It has 2 time lines, one historical which provides context, and is minimal. It’s very difficult to talk about this book without spoilers. It has so many unexpected twists and turns that kept me engrossed, it took a direction I wasn’t expecting, but I didn’t find it went overboard with it.

Anna’s character has so many layers, throughout you’re left wondering if she’s very switched on with her paranoia, or mentally ill.

I don’t think this book is one for women undergoing IVF, your hormones will be giving you a hard enough time already.

It gets full marks for being innovative, and for the execution of the storyline which sounds totally positive, so I’m not sure why this one didn’t resonate with me more. I enjoyed it, and would recommend it especially if you enjoy something a bit different.

Wow!! This was not what I expected - literally couldn't put it down as I had no idea what was going on

Anna and her husband Dex are going through IVF treatment but sadly Anna loses the baby and has a miscarriage. But just a few weeks later, during a bourbon filled night, she's convinced she feels something moving inside her

Another scan reveals that she is in fact still pregnant and is delighted! However, there are some very strange going on's through her pregnancy and she has no idea who to trust.

She's not sure If she's being paranoid but feels as if she's being followed, worried her food is being poisoned and finds dolls of her placed around the property they are staying at

What I found interesting was how woman are treated by the medical staff and almost gas lighted in believing their pain was not that bad - "what would it take for our husbands and doctors to take our seriously?"

"The tendency to assume that women can't be trusted to accurately convey their symptoms comes from the historical diagnosis of 'hysteria', which was once thought to be a medical condition said to only affect women"

Creepy, haunting and addictive read!!

A gestation thriller!

(This review is based on a free review copy from the publisher via Net Galley UK)

This is a well-written and generally well-thought-out novel with an interesting surprise ending. It describes a nightmare pregnancy during a winter which seems to go on for so long that the setting might be Narnia rather than the Hamptons. That cost it a star, I’m afraid: I know it’s about the way that perceptions change during pregnancy, but a pregnancy supplies a certain timeline and the season doesn’t seem, to the reader, to turn with that timeline. It may be alright in the author’s original plan, but so much of the book happens in winter that it seems eternal.

The other troubling thing is that, until the surprise ending and explanation is reached, it’s hard for the reader to tell whether the pregnant heroine is being stalked by strangers or at least gaslighted by her husband, or if she’s delusional and hallucinating. This isn’t a crime for which any writer can or should be “cancelled” but it carries rather more risks in the real world than most of the things writers are being cancelled for these days. The whole point of stalking and more especially gaslighting is very often to get the victim declared mentally-ill and, most especially delusional. Either to discredit them in court (especially a divorce court) or for someone connected with the stalker to seize control of the victim’s financial affairs. There’s not a stalker in the known universe who wouldn’t be pleased to confuse women’s (or men’s in some cases) experience of being stalked or gaslighted with delusion, hallucination or some allied psychosis. And even when the novel’s fairly startling conclusion is reached, the necessary delineation between abuse and hallucination is not quite there.

This book has some interesting things to say, but the two deficiencies significantly dilute what is good about it.

**Listened to the audiobook as well as following along with the electronic copy**

Firstly, I have to state that this book is missing some severe and dramatic trigger warnings! Trigger warnings for miscarriage, abortion, traumatic birth and other themes along these lines.

This book had me gripped, and I had no idea where this book was going. The audio book's narrator was so good at keeping me on the edge of my seat. This book spans genres, and because of this there was a real feeling of unease, and not knowing what was going to happen next.

I felt a little let down by the ending, but the journey towards the ending was so worth it!

Half way through I learned this book was the basis for the next season of American Horror Story. It couldn't be more perfect for that show. Sick, twisted and witchy, Delicate Condition will gaslight you right till the last page.

Anna Victoria Alcott has it all. An up and coming Hollywood career, a loving husband and a beautiful home. There's only one thing she doesn't have; a baby. When she finally falls pregnant from IVF, Anna thinks all of her dreams have finally come true. Unfortunately, this is the beginning of her worst nightmare. Anna is patronized, coddled and downright lied to throughout the entire pregnancy, with even her own husband trying to convince her the strange occurrences were all in her head. By the end, she (and I) had no idea who to trust and I felt my own ovaries shrivelling up and dying. I was just waiting for some Rosemary's Baby style demon to come clawing out of her and the nightmare would be complete.

Whilst I felt for Anna and her struggle to maintain reality, this was severely dragged out. It just didn't need to be over 400 pages long. I felt like I was reading for 9 months. There was a lot of inner monologue that felt repetitious and I found myself skimming over parts that I was sure I'd read before. I saw the ending coming but it wasn't any less shocking.

First of all: whoa, that was intense! Goodness me, it’s a good thing I read those final 100 or so pages in the morning or I wouldn’t have slept all night!

To me, Delicate Condition felt very much like a Rosemary’s Baby for the 21st century, with the same eeriness, the same mystery, with the same central question: is-this-delusion-or-something-dark-and sinister-at-work?

For me, the thriller and horror aspects stand out, but Delicate Condition also offers an insightful and thought-provoking look at pregnancy and all its challenges, including difficulties to become pregnant in the first place, and the not always appropriate attitude of husbands and friends, as well as healthcare professionals.

Delicate Condition holds its cards incredibly close to its chest. Where would this story take me? I didn’t have the foggiest. And let me tell you, it was EXHILARATING! Of course we know the narrator, Anna, is at least somewhat unreliable, she is having hallucinations after all. But just how unreliable is she? Are we to believe her husband, her doctor, her friends, is she losing the plot? Or is she more in tune with her own body than she even dares to believe herself? Has she become entangled with a Satanic cult, or is she just having a tough pregnancy? Is she pregnant with a who? Or with a what?

Yikes, what a story! It starts on the slower side, but then the tension ramps up and meanwhile, I was kept in the dark, pondering all my questions. If work and life in general had allowed it, I would have binged it in a day. As it stands, I had about 20% left and promised myself I would start my day off by plonking myself in a chair and reading until I knew what was what. Which is exactly what I did, and what a perfect start to the day it was!

Delicate Condition is a suspenseful thriller with quite a bit of body horror involved and I just gobbled it up all the way to its satisfying conclusion. Recommended!

Read courtesy of NetGalley. My opinions are my own.

It was an okay novel. It combines a gripping plot with a slightly too didactic tone of "I'm raising consciousness here" (perhaps it would work better for someone who has never read a pregnancy memoir, but I've read several so the tone of disbelief at details of biological discomforts didn't quite work for me). I mostly enjoyed the historical interludes (although some of them feel unfinished). My two main complaints are 1) that it felt a little by the numbers (medical professionals igoring symptoms? check. Husband mansplaining? Check. Obligatory disclaimers about privilege? Check.) and 2) that the ending didn't really pack the kind of punch I wanted it too, and if I was to be honest - the horror was so mild. There's stalkers and abuse and monsters and cults in this and I've read scarier pregnancy stories on reddit.

That said, it's competent, cohesive and I'm curious about the upcoming TV adaptation.

Many years ago, before I'd decided I absolutely did not want to have children, I went through years of trying and failing to conceive. It isn't something that affects me now but for anyone who is upset by this topic I strongly recommend you do not pick this novel up.

The suffering Anna endures through her IVF conception is so well written, I fell hard for this fictional character, her pain is heart wrenchingly tangible.

Valentine leverages the hormones and medication involved to give us an unreliable narrator. Written in first from Anna's perspective, all the reader can really know is what Anna experiences.. or atleast believes she is experiencing.

There is a lot of blood, a lot of trauma and some surprisingly gory scenes to behold in Delicate Condition. As is often the case with such stories I found myself wanting to reach in and slap the men in this novel, only this time the women aren't trustworthy either!

Valentine breaks up the present timeline with multiple third person accounts of women from a vast range of time periods experiencing the same bizarre symptoms Anna has encountered.

My one disappointment was the gift wrapped ending. I've never been one to enjoy a 'years later' epilogue, I'd have preferred to end with the ambiguous fever dream finale to leave us wondering... was it real?

Read it and see for yourself! I recommend to anyone comfortable with the material. A solid, creepy thriller that I raced through on a rainy Sunday.

First of all trigger warning for miscarriage and fertility issues.
What a dark dark story but I really enjoyed it . I found it both disturbing and fascinating in equal measures . The story weaves seamlessly.
Not for the lighthearted!

"Delicate Condition" by Danielle Valentine is a gripping and chilling thriller that delves into the harrowing journey of Anna Alcott, an indie actress desperate to have a family. As she faces the challenges of IVF and a series of unsettling events, Anna becomes convinced that someone is determined to prevent her from becoming a mother. The suspense builds as crucial medications go missing, appointments are tampered with, and Anna feels like she's being stalked. When she finally becomes pregnant, the nightmare intensifies as someone breaks into her home and steals her ultrasound photograph. Despite her anguish, no one, not even her husband, believes her claims. Isolated in a remote town, Anna's fear escalates as she realizes that her life and the life of her unborn child are in grave danger. Valentine masterfully weaves a tale of psychological suspense, keeping readers on the edge of their seats until the shocking truth is revealed.

'The feminist update to Rosemary's Baby we all needed' - ANDREA BARTZ
'A darkly visceral and magically evocative novel' - SARAH LAWTON
'A timely, terrifying, heartfelt thriller' - CHRIS WHITAKER

I wanted this baby so badly.
But she may be the death of me…

Before I start my review, I wanted to mention first of all that this is a very unsettling book and could be very triggering in a number of different ways for anyone who is going through a pregnancy or trying to have a baby. Now that's out of the way...

All I knew about Delicate Condition when I was offered the chance to read it via NetGalley was the quote and testimonials at the start of this review and although my first thought was that they are pretty big claims to live up to, it did make me pretty much want to dive in immediately and see if it did.

The main character, Anna Alcot is a bit of a celebrity. She's an ex-child star actress who has watched her star wane somewhat after years playing minor parts in various productions. However she's recently found herself on the up after the new film she's starring in turns out to be a surprise underground hit and she's nominated for an Oscar. As is often the case with these things, the timing isn't great; for some time, she and her husband Dex have wanted to start a family and are about to undergo another, probably final round of IVF. This is the last chance they'll have, and Anna is not optimistic that their marriage will succeed if they don't make a baby this time.

Things start to go wrong early on when Anna is late for a very time-sensitive appointment with her eminent fertility doctor, Dr Carla Hill. She has to have an injection at a specific time and arrives confused and upset after Dex has called to check where she is. Luckily she still makes the timeframe, however Dex is understandably unimpressed, his mood not improved by Anna's insistence that the appointment time was originally correct in her calendar. Upon leaving the fertility clinic, a random 'fan' quickly snaps a picture of Anna and posts it on a 'celebrity' forum and Anna's hopes for secrecy are dashed.

A few weeks later and Anna and Dex get the best news; they have a baby on the way. Time passes without much incident – a few odd situations with things that can be explained to 'baby brain' and soon Anna can feel the baby kicking. Then a shocking incident occurs and the whole story takes a sharp, unexpected and frightening turn. Anna is stuck in an horrific situation with the worst possible scenarios racing through her mind, while all the people in her life who should be helping and supporting her – especially those within the medical community - seem to be either patronising her or gaslighting her, and she's not quite sure which. Come to that, as the reader neither was I. What follows is a terrifying journey through a pregnancy that seems to be all wrong, both in feeling and presentation. Everyone around her is behaving strangely and as a result she's suspicious of everyone and everything. Is Anna going mad, or is there something incredibly wrong with her baby? And why is everyone being so weird?

There are many themes in this book, including Anna's turmoil at trying to find a balance between finally becoming a successful Oscar nominated actress; something she couldn't even have dreamed of, at the same time as becoming a Mother – something she's always dreamed of. There's the stresses of trying for a baby and holding together a marriage that's falling apart at the seams, and the hurt and confusion of being left to drown in uncertain waters when those who you rely on let you down and leave you to flail, alone. At some points it definitely strays into horror, reminiscent of Rosemary's Baby, and as I understand, is due to be made into the next part of the American Horror Story series. When that happens, I'm sure I'll be watching some of it from behind a cushion!

I received a free review copy from the publisher in exchange for my honest unedited feedback.

Thank you Danielle Valentine, Net Galley and Serpent's Tail / Viper / Profile Books, Viper for giving me this arc dread in exchange for a honest review.

I wanna start of by mentioning this book contains heavy triggers of horror and miscarriage, fertility issues and supernatural elements.

I do love a thriller, this did take me a little while to get into but once I did I was fully intrigued with how the story would follow. It had you guessing and guessing what was going to happen.

This book wasn't what I was expecting but did enjoy this book and couldn't put it down. I do think this book was more of the horror/supernatural genre compared to a thriller. This book had me experiencing so many emotions and I'm so glad I read it a solid 4 star read for me.

Well that was a weird and wonderful read. 3.5 Stars!!

On reading the description I was really intrigued especially as I love a good thriller however I would say this book was more of a supernatural horror and it turned out to be not at all what I expected.
This isn't a bad thing as such as I was really gripped by the story, starting it yesterday and finishing it today.

This book had very much a "who done it" theme and lots of interesting characters to keep you guessing, just when I thought I had figured it out there would be another twist to the point I was suspicious of everyone, this was very well done on the authors part. However some characters just vanished, like Kamal who played quite a major role in the story just to be let go never to be seen again.

The story is very much a slow burn however I was never bored and remained intrigued throughout. The story does take a weird turn towards the end in a way I wasn't expecting but that's on the description and how this book was marketed and doesn't make for a bad book, it was a good read but just be prepared that this book may not be what you expected on reading it's descriptions.
I really enjoyed Valentines writing style throughout.

As much as there are trigger warnings for this book I would like to emphasise that these things are VERY graphic just bare that in mind when reading this.

As a woman and a mother I appreciate this book focusing on the subject of how women are treated by the medical system when it comes to our pain and concerns and how these things are often not taken seriously. This was done incredibly well by Valentine and I appreciated her notes at the end of the book.

I’m struggling a bit with this book. I enjoyed most of it and just couldn’t work out where it was going but I’m afraid the witchcraft element was just too far-fetched for me and spoiled the ending - and there were one or two things that happened that weren’t really explained. 3 stars.