Having been inseparable since high school, Essie and Sanjay have embarked on a new chapter by purchasing a home. Approaching their 30s, Essie is on the brink of clearing her Bar exam and embracing her dream of becoming a lawyer. However, an unexpected twist in their tale comes in the form of a pregnancy, leading Essie to momentarily sideline her aspirations. Alongside the typical challenges of pregnancy, the couple grapples with an eerie presence in their new home, one that seems to be influencing Sanjay in unnerving ways. Essie is haunted by her grandmother's cautionary tales of a family curse; could this be its manifestation?

It's engaging as the narrative unfolds with riveting momentum. The alternating perspectives, mainly between Essie and the two intriguing women, Isabel and Ana, added layers of mystery. Initially, their relevance to Essie's life seems elusive, but as the threads intertwine, the revelations are rewarding. Essie's portrayal resonated with me personally, recalling my own challenging pregnancy marked by relentless nausea. What sets this apart is its departure from a traditional ghost story, offering readers an unexpected spin.

Essie is an independent woman who only has a soft spot for her husband, Sanjay. She never planned to be a mother but then she finds out she is pregnant. As her pregnancy moves along and her life turns into one she barely recognizes, Sanjay spends his nights pacing the attic, becoming a stranger, and now the house is whispering. Their lives become warped by a curse that's haunted her family for generations, leaving a string of fatherless daughters in its wake.

No Child of Mine was a quick and entertaining listen. I received this as an audiobook ARC and the narrators did a fine job bringing the story alive. I found the story to be unique and although I didn't LOVE it, it was enjoyable. I was hoping to feel a sense of spooky scary vibes, but I didn't get that. I am not sure I would categorize this one as horror either but that's just me. No Child of Mine is out now!

Thank you NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for the ARC and giving me the chance to listen and review it honestly.

Happy reading

This book wasn't what I was expecting. I thought it was going to be more of a spooky haunted house story but its mostly about morning sickness. It is told in two timelines and POV's. The first is a newly pregnant woman and the second is a woman in love in the past. Neither pov was that interesting to me.

No Child of Mine is a great debut novel from Nichelle Giraldes. I really liked the main character Essie, though I’ll admit I found her husband to be a bit annoying. I wouldn’t say there was a whole lot of suspense but I did love the old haunted house and spooky vibes. I liked the author’s prose and the plot was nicely paced. I didn’t mind the dual timeline, I thought it was well done. I didn’t feel too pulled out of the “present day” timeline even though it switched to the past every other chapter.

Thank you to Poisoned Pen Press and Dreamscape Media for providing an audio ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.

Essie and Sanjay are expecting their first baby. Essie's pregnancy is difficult physically and emotionally, and as it progresses, a mounting dread builds around her, as she begins to wonder about a generations-old curse visited upon the women in her family.

So first off, I found that the main character, Essie, is extremely unlikeable. I'm unsure if this is to make her husband, Sanjay, seem more of a victim/saint/deserving of salvation, but holy cow. She's all the things people with children believe about those who choose childlessness: she's selfish and rude, especially to her sainted husband, who obviously doesn't deserve his wife's vitriol. Beyond that, the curse is intriguing, but the resolution seems abrupt and unfulfilling. I wanted to like this book so much more than I did, but unfortunately, it was too long and too short at the same time.

I received an audiobook copy of this book from NetGalley, in exchange for a fair review.

It was fine, just not for me

~This book was given to me by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Essie, a hardworking woman who put her career on hold to further her loving husbands’ finds out she’s pregnant as she’s nearly at the end of her law school journey. She struggles with family versus career, having already put so much on hold that the timing of this pregnancy is often the center of her thoughts. Also adding elements to the story is this family curse that has involved generations of women on Essie’s side.

There were few things that I really loved about this book. The writing was very well done, I found myself rewinding to audio to just relisten to passages because of how easily the words flowed and conveyed the plot. The narration was also phenomenal. I will be seeking out other narrations by this cast as they all did an incredible job.

For me, the dual timelines just didn’t work for the first 90% of the book, and once the connection was made it was almost too late for me to forgive that. The stories were so disconnected for a majority of the time, and Anna and Isabel’s voices weren’t distinct enough for me to really be invested in that part of the story.

The most disturbing part of this story was the misery and constant vomiting Essie suffered being pregnant, the toll it took on her physically and emotionally. As a child-free woman, that situation was particularly gruesome, and one of a million reasons I'm glad for my choices. The dual timeline, the uneasy house, the whispers, the glimpses of ghosts, the husband's waning sanity, the black hole of sacrifices made for this baby - none of these plot points were all that compelling or scary. No chills, no creeps, no discomfort reading it at night or in the dark. It was simply awful witnessing a brutal, unplanned pregnancy.

3.5 ⭐️
Essie and Sanjay are in their late 20’s and have been together since high school. They decide that it’s time for them to buy their first house. Essie is excited to finally finish law school after waiting for Sanjay to complete his degree first. Then an unexpected pregnancy forces her to put her career on the back burner yet again. Essie ends up being put on bed rest after pregnancy complications. She’s having nightmares & Sanjay is acting strange. And during all of this there also seems to be an unexplained presence in the house.

There is a second story being told from long ago about about best friends, Isabel and Ana. To be honest, I enjoyed this story a lot more. It held the suspense that the present day story seemed to lack. This is why I ended up adding another 1/2 star.

I listened to the audiobook and the narration was great. I would definitely recommend it.
My only thing is that with the NetGalley app, you can’t customize the speed enough and I’m forced to pick between too fast and too slow. This has been endlessly frustrating to me. It could be a much more enjoyable experience if it was more like the Libby app.

Thanks to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for providing me with an advanced copy of this audiobook.

Thanks NetGalley, Poisoned Pen Press and Dreamscape Media for the audiobook version of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

This novel was deep at times, quite dark at others but in some ways fairly relatable. Told in a back and forth pattern our main story is of Essie, a young married woman who is currently in law school and close to graduating and starting her own career, something put on hold as her husband focused on his first.

However, nature had other plans and she finds out she is pregnant. Essie is a bit bitter over the concept because the timing could not be worse. Her novelist husband on the contrary is pretty fine with painting the nursery (what was supposed to be her office) and spending hours up in his attic office.

Story two is back in a previous time and is the story of two women in love, both married to different people (husbands in this case), but they yearn to be together.

The back and forth was a bit abrupt to me but it did make sense as the story continued. In all honesty I think I could have been okay without the second storyline in this book as Essie’s section was more realistic and relatable, though also a bit slower. Overall, a decent read. A bit of a paranormal thrown into the novel to keep it exciting.

Sigh. I really want to be kind, but this book was just okay. Nothing twisty or creepy even though it was tryign to be. and lord was Essie just a miserable character. I hated her. I felt bad for Sanjay being married to her. The writing style was fine, but I just was bored. Sorry.

This is a mixed review. I deeply appreciated how beautifully written this story was; emotional, lyrical, descriptive and flowing. Giraldes smoothly transports the reader between two POVs and timelines. Essie and Sanjay are a loving, modern couple and Ana and Isabel are two women deeply in love during a time when young women are married off to strangers with no say in their lives.

Essie becomes pregnant, and this difficult pregnancy makes active the centuries-old curse of only daughters giving birth to only daughters because the fathers die soon after the birth.

The hauntings in Essie and Sanjays life are subtle enough to be pretty nonexistent. The pregnancy is a long pitiful slog for Essie AND the reader. I felt like I was reading that second trimester in real time. Nothing happened except Essie whining for 200 pages.

The climax of both timelines merging happened in one paragraph. So slog, slog, slog, slog, slog…WHAM, the end.

Thank you to Dreamscape Media and Netgalley for my gifted audiobook.



Essie unexpectedly becomes pregnant and this throws her life into a tailspin. While I enjoyed the story of Essies pregnancy and the things that started happening in the home, it just didn't really hit for me. I felt it was mainly about pregnancy and the struggle, now this was done so well and felt so real.
The narration was fantastic and made me enjoy the story more.

Essie and Sanjay are childhood sweethearts, Essie is studying law and Sanjay is a successful architect, this is the life they have been dreaming of and soon Essie will have finished college and can finally become a Lawyer as she has always wanted. However when Essie becomes pregnant, scuppering their life plans, she begins to believe more and more in a family curse that her grandmother has warned her about. Curious things are happening in their new house and Sanjay begins acting increasingly strangely.

Their story interwoven with a historical love story of its own, make for a gripping and suspenseful psychological horror. The tale of Isobel and Ana is at its heart completely believable; a tale of forbidden love and marital abuse. Their love letters sprinkled throughout really add some depth to the story and bring the two tales together. I really enjoyed this book and was at the edge of my seat at times, the build up of suspense was great but I would have like the ‘finale’ to be a little longer and more explosive than it turned out to be. That being said it was still a very enjoyable and entertaining listen, the narrator was great and kept me engaged the whole time. This is a good pick for people who are interested in suspenseful psychological horror and the paranormal.

3.5 rounded up.

We’re getting into the Halloween season and as such I’ve been binging spooky/creepy books like crazy. Something possibly creepy in a new house a couple has moved into? Potential family curse? Yeah, sign me up for this one. While it turned out to be the ‘tamest’ of the books I’ve been reading as of late, I still found it be solidly entertaining. The story is told via two timelines, present day dealing with a couple buying and moving into their first house, and long past dealing with two women and the lives they are forced to live. Both storylines were interesting but I have to say for almost half the book if not a bit more than half I just wasn’t quite sure how they were going to connect to each other, but of course eventually all was revealed, with the storylines merging quite nicely. As a single guy it may sound strange that I really connected with the present day tale of Essie, with her and husband moving into the new home, Essie finding out she is pregnant and her having mixed emotions/trouble coming to terms with that as well as the oddities happening around the house. Author Nichelle Giraldes just did a wonderful job of making you feel the internal conflict as well as the exhaustion of Essie’s pregnancy. Of course part of that is also likely due to the wonderful narration work. As a matter of fact the audio version features three different narrators, and while I think they could have gotten away using a single narrator for the entire story, I did appreciate the use of the multiple narrators, each taking the roll of the key female characters. All of them were great. The story was quite entertaining, extremely atmospheric at times, and dealt with a number of serious issues, though I must admit that perhaps it could have been streamlined just a bit, as I felt it got just touch repetitive every now and then. I’d like to thank Dreamscape Media and NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to and review an advanced copy of the audio version of No Child of Mine.

https://www.amazon.com/review/RPWVT57L0NL2A/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv

**3.5-stars rounded up**

No Child of Mine follows Essie Kaur, an ambitious young woman who has recently found out that she is pregnant for the first time. Essie is in a very loving marriage with her husband, Sanjay, whom she adores, but in spite of that, Essie is less than stoked about the news.

In fact, privately, she's pretty upset about it. Essie is currently in law school, almost through, ready to take the bar exam early the following year, how is she going to make that work now? The baby will be three months old when she is supposed to sit for the bar?

Essie keeps a lot of her feelings to herself; well, most of them honestly. She's afraid people will judge her for not having the ecstatic, happy reaction society teaches us we are supposed to always have. She wants to be happy. She loves the little being growing inside her, she really does, but that love is being shadowed by a lot of other darker emotions right now.

As the Reader, we sit inside Essie's head as she struggles with these emotions, her changing body, her changing relationship and her ever changing reality. While some of it borders on repetitive, I feel like as a person who frequently suffers from repetitive thoughts, it still made sense to me. I could imagine being Essie and having these same exact thoughts over and over.

In addition to Essie's perspective, we also get a historical perspective following two women, Isabelle and Anna.
It's unclear initially how these women are connected to Essie and her story, but as their narrative evolves it becomes clear where it is going. This aspect adds the impetus behind some of the darker elements in the present perspective. Particularly, what's going on with Sanjay.

As a soon to be 45-year old woman, who made a conscious decision at a very young age to never have children, these types of stories revolving around pregnancy and early motherhood either drive me crazy, or I end up connecting to them in a powerful way.

Regardless of the final outcome, I do enjoy picking up stories that involve these themes, because I like to see what sort of new elements, or perspectives, various authors will bring. I think Giraldes did a great job of writing Essie's perspective.

To me, Essie's concerns and emotional struggle was 100% believable. She was a woman who had a plan for her future, who had sacrificed to reach her goals, and so close to the finish line had everything up-ended while her husband still got to live his dream.

I was nodding along in many parts, even yelling words of support for her. The only issue I had with this story really, and it's a minor one, was the connection between the historic perspective and Essie's present perspective. For me, there were times, when it felt a little too disjointed. By this I mean, the transition between the two sometimes seemed jarring; like it wasn't as fluid as I would hope.

Essie's sections felt so straight forward, but for Isabelle and Anna, my brain was working overtime trying to figure out why it was even included. Because of this, for at least the first half, every time it switched perspectives, it kicked me out of the story. At times, I felt a bit like I was reading two separate books.

With this being said, there is a certain reveal that happens, where after that, it started making sense. Plus, additional things were happening in the current perspective, where you could feel that distinct influence from the past. Giraldes brought it around. It was eventually cleared up and tied together by the end. Although, one final nit-pick is the ending was too abrupt for my tastes.

Overall though, this is a very solid story. I think it provides a lot of food for thought, as far as a women's role in the modern world, as well as interesting commentary on women's issues spanning generations.

Thank you to the publisher, Poisoned Pen Press and Dreamscape Media, for providing me copies to read and review. I found this quite absorbing and am looking forward to picking up more from this author.

Also, I would definitely recommend the audio format. The narrator did an incredible job bringing it to life and making it compelling. I feel like it's a great way to take in this story.

I requested this one because it might be an upcoming title I would like to review on my Youtube Channel. However, after reading the first several chapters I have determined that this book does not suit my tastes. So I decided to DNF this one.

Through generations of women in their family, upon the birth of their daughters, their lives are ripped from them. It’s a curse that Essie’s mother and grandmother have told her all about. But, it is okay because Essie has never wanted children. All she wants is Sanjay, her amazing husband, and her law career.

When she is surprised by news that she is pregnant, her body immediately begins to feel like not her own. She is going to have to rethink her law career timeline, and she is always so sick, but she knows she wants this baby after all.

Quickly, nightmares plague her, and the curse that she never gave any real thought to becomes a glaring problem. Sanjay is increasingly looking worse and acting strangely and panic begins to overtake her.

Meanwhile, we get interspersed chapters of a love between two women decades upon decades ago. We see slowly, how their lives impact the life of Essie and her family.

I loved this. I thought the slow crescendo of fear was well done. I thought the story was great, the characters all very well formed. The pacing of this was perfection, creating a truly ominous atmosphere. The only thing I didn’t like was the portrayal of Essie when it came to how strongly she felt about not wanting children juxtaposed with how instantly she came to terms with it. It felt like a commentary on the ideology that women who don’t want children would change their mind when becoming pregnant. Like that’s all it would take for a woman to realize that she was mistaken about knowing herself and what she wanted from her life. I do get that it happens, but that just isn’t always the case. It felt a little pushy. Even still, for the sake of the story, I could get past that and really enjoy the entirety of the book.

Wow, what a debut by Nichelle Giraldes! It's just the right amount of creepy to be believable without going completely over the top -- the perfect spooky season read. The dual timelines really works in No Child of Mine, and they were tied together perfectly. There's no what I like to call Scooby-and-Shaggy moments, where the mask is pulled off the "ghost" and it's all revealed. There are some things we don't understand, and No Child of Mine lets the story play out in a realistic, believable way. Nichelle Giraldes is an author to watch!

Thank you Netgalley for this audiobook arc.

This may have spoilers

First thing I'm going to say is this is not a typical horror. This is more the horror of pregnancy to be honest and what you go through or can go through during a pregnancy like morning sickness and such.
There is supernatural elements to the story which is why I'm assuming it's classified as a horror because of the whole generational curse.
The reason why I'm giving this a middle of the road 3 ⭐ is because it was a good debut but the pacing was off, it was slow and dragged on a bit too much in my opinion and then if you blink during the ending you miss it.
Anyways I was just hoping for more especially with that cover I was expecting a scary haunted house or demon child or just something