Anyone down for a little maybe it’s postpartum psychosis or maybe someone really is out to get you??? If so, this one may be for you. Flora is still in her postpartum diapers and truly on the struggle bus with tiny little Iris since her dad and stepmom went back home and her husband isn’t due back from his military deployment for another week. Between the lack of sleep and infected nipples, Flora does something she never could have imagined she would do . . . calls her estranged mother for some help.

And then shit gets weird.

I think these “I just had a baby and now I’m crazy” books have become a dime a dozen, but throw in a toxic mother/daughter relationship and I’m glad I listened to my inner Zephie who told me I should take the reader copy of this one when it was offered to me. Creepy!

ARC provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Considering the theme, it was hard to tell where horror met reality. Postpartum trauma is something real that usually has to be identified by an outsider, and this was a clever idea for a story. Parents also often try to control how their adult children parent, too, so there was just such tension and discomfort. This is a horror book that is going to stay with me for a while.

I would call this postpartum horror, so trigger warning for any one who has just had a baby or is about to. The author did a great job at creating a super creepy atmosphere that makes you question the main characters sanity and/or if this could really be a supernatural in nature.

Creepy and atmospheric! I was unsettled the whole way through. Jacquie Walters proves with this debut novel that they aren't afraid to lean fully into dark, dramatic horror themes. I am keen to see what they release next!

This one wasn’t really my cup of tea. I got about 30% into it and just couldn’t get interested in the story line. I’m going to put on pause and hopefully come back when I am more in the mood! Over all the writing was decent I just wasn’t into the story!

Dearest delivers psychological horror with bone-deep intensity. Flora, a sleep-deprived new mom navigating postpartum isolation while her husband is deployed, loses grip on reality just as her estranged mother unexpectedly shows up. What follows is a masterclass in domestic dread and eerie ambiguity. Is it supernatural malevolence—or maternal paranoia?

I am a seasonal theme reader, and I was saving Jacquie Walters’ debut Dearest to read around Mother’s Day since it profiles a new mom and her burgeoning relationship with her newborn daughter, as well as that of her own mother. However, this book would have worked just as well for spooky season because it is quite the horrifying ride! Whether you read it in May or October, Dearest is guaranteed to make you contemplate the ever complex mother-daughter relationship, while also making your skin crawl.

Flora has just given birth to her daughter Iris, and is trying to do it all alone since her husband is deployed but due back soon. However, between the sleepless nights and the struggles with breastfeeding, Flora’s life with a newborn feels like a fever dream. She may just absolutely be losing her mind. In a desperate attempt to save her sanity, she contacts her long-estranged mother for help. When her mother shows up on Flora’s doorstep, she is filled with relief because finally she may get some help.

But things get even stranger with her mother in her home. With objects moving around the house seemingly by themselves and Flora experiencing things that others say never happened, Flora doesn’t know if she is being gaslit or if she is losing her grip on reality. And when the truth about her relationship with her mother comes to light, things take an even darker turn …

Jacque Walters’ Dearest most certainly gave me the creeps! This is a mesmerizing, haunting novel about the new mother experience with a touch of the spooky and supernatural. This novel is a quick and easy read that is driven forth by both character and plot development. There are many mysteries to unravel here, including those involving long-buried family secrets, and there’s certainly plenty of creepiness to chew upon and contemplate.

Recommended to fans of Ashley Audrain’s The Push and Helena Echlin’s Clever Little Thing.

In the throes of new motherhood and isolated by her husband’s deployment, Flora is barely holding it together. Sleepless nights blur into hallucinations, and the creeping dread that something is terribly wrong won’t let her rest. Then, her estranged mother shows up unannounced—offering help, reconciliation… and something far more chilling.

As unsettling events unfold in the house, Flora begins to question everything: her memories, her sanity, and even the nature of reality itself. Is the house haunted, or is Flora's mind unraveling? With each page, the tension tightens, and the line between the real and the imagined vanishes into a nightmare.

Fast-paced and psychologically rich, Dearest is a dark, immersive thriller that explores the terrors of motherhood, memory, and the legacy of trauma. Perfect for fans of The Babadook and Sharp Objects, this is not just a story—it’s a descent into madness you won’t soon forget.

Thank you so much to #NetGalley and #Mulhollandbooks for the #freearc in exchange for my honest feedback.

3.5 stars ⭐️

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read a free copy of this novel in exchange for my honest opinion.

I saw another reviewer say that this was similar to "The Push by Ashley Audrain with a supernatural twist" and ummmmmm....yes, exactly that!! I will say that there are dream sequences galore, so maybe skip this if you aren't a fan of that. BUT if you are looking for a spooky, fever dream-esque novel that will make you go "HUH?!" at the end then this is definitely the book for you. Side note: gorgeoussssss cover art, draws you right in and doesn't let you go!

This book was fine but nothing ground-breaking. I enjoyed it well enough, but I probably won’t go out of my way to recommend it.

Any woman who has had a baby knows what a nightmare the postpartum stage is like. Juggling learning how to look after a helpless newborn with recovering from delivery/ c-sections, extreme sleep deprivation, troubles with breastfeeding, and unhelpful partners is actual torture, add to all that the constant fear that you’re going to do something wrong and the baby is going to end up dead…. Perfect for the horror genre.

Jacquie Walters explores all this in raw, genuine, no holds barred writing that had me in tears at moments, constantly terrified, and unable to stop reading. It’s hard to believe that this is a debut!

Being a new mother isn’t easy but doing it while your husband is deployed makes it a bit harder. Flora, alone with a new baby, feels like she’s losing her mind and then, her estranged mother arrives. This should ease the burden but instead, things take a turn for the worse. What’s actually happening here?

This book had me questioning everything I read and everything I thought. Best to go into this one with an open mind and don’t think you know what’s happening because chances are, you don’t!

Deeply unsettling and still gives me the heebs every time I think about it.

Thank you Mulholland Books for this gifted DRC!

There are very few things that make me uncomfortable right off the bat, and in depth descriptions of motherhood pretty much top the list. This may say a lot about me as a woman but we’ll dive into that another day.

Dearest is about Flora, who is desperately trying to survive the challenges of being a new mom. The lack of sleep, the toll its taken on her body (oh god the descriptions are ever so clear, thank you Jacquie) as she waits for her husband to return from being deployed, so she’ll have assistance raising sweet Iris. It becomes too much for her, and she reaches out to her estranged mother for help - this doesn’t feel like a great idea, but desperate times call for desperate measures. When her mother arrives, Flora tries to ignore the signs that this woman may not be the distance yet the same mother she remembers from her childhood - as sleep deprivation sets in and strange things begin to happen, Flora’s grasp on reality starts to slip and the clarity between what is true and what is not hours beyond recognition.

I was blown away by this debut novel - horror is such an odd genre to tackle because everyone likes and appreciates something different but this one really hit the mark for me. It made my skin crawl (really, the body horror and real life descriptions in this one were enough to make me shiver), it evoked emotion, it further solidified my choice of being a childfree adult… It was absolutely fantastic.

I’d give this book 5 terribly infected nipples (and somehow, I DO mean that as a good thing). I cannot wait to read Jacquie’s new book being released later this year. Thank you NetGalley, Jacquie Walters and Mulholland Books for a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review!

More potential than actual substance here - frustrating, uneven pacing combines with surface-level depth for an unsatisfying read.

I value the opportunity I was given to read this in advance, but I still haven't read this. With so many books ahead of me, I cannot return to this title.

I Recieved a copy of this book to review. I really enjoyed it couldn’t put the book down reading in two days. Suspenseful and mysterious making you want to know what will happen next. The end of the story left you wanting more. Hoping there is a sequel

Love love love! This was so well-written. It was emotional and creepy in the best ways. It really felt like I was going through what Flora was going through. I read this on kindle and it still managed to scare me with the sudden sound parts like the toy that wouldn’t turn off! Highly recommend and will read more by this author.

I love "mother" related horror stories... I can't quite put my finger on why! But there's something to be said about this sub-genre in that it never bores me, seems redundant, etc. And Jacquie Walters does just an excellent job at crafting something so unique and eerie! I could NOT put this one down and it might go down as one of the best horror books released last year (for me!)

This book was fine. There were definitely creepy moments that made me feel super unsettled but I think because I’ve just read other books about overwhelmed/sleep deprived moms that this one didn’t really stand out for me.

Let me start by saying this: if you’re a new mother, Dearest might just be the most horrifying thing you’ll ever read. Thankfully, I’m past that stage, but even so, this book unsettled me to my core. Jacquie Walters masterfully captures the raw, unfiltered dread of early motherhood, blending it seamlessly with an eerie, slow-burning horror.

One thing that really pulled me in was the author’s incredible writing style. It’s hard to believe this is a debut—Walters knows how to pace a story. I flew through the book in no time, caught up in Flora’s unraveling reality and the oppressive sense of unease that builds with every page.

That said, there was one aspect that brought me straight back to cringe town: breastfeeding. As someone who personally wasn’t a fan of that part of motherhood (though I still powered through it for as long as I could), the mentions of it in the book gave me the ick. It’s not a critique of the story—it’s just my own visceral reaction, and I imagine other readers might feel differently.

Despite that personal squirm factor, Dearest is an astonishing debut. Walters crafts a narrative that’s both deeply human and profoundly unsettling. If you’re looking for a book that will leave you with a lingering sense of dread and a pit in your stomach, this one delivers.