Her Daughter's Mother

April 15, 2019
New York art curator Lana Stone, the 39-year-old heroine of Petrova’s impressive debut, faces her last chance at carrying a baby to full term with the help of an egg donor after battling with infertility for years. Three days before the scheduled transfer, Tyler, Lana’s partner, abandons her. Heartbroken, Lana proceeds with the transfer and becomes pregnant without Tyler’s knowledge. A week later, while riding the subway, Lana recognizes her baby’s anonymous egg donor, vivacious 21-year-old Ivy League graduate Katya Dimitrova, from the photo in Katya’s egg donor profile. Lana approaches Katya, with whom she shares a Bulgarian heritage, and the two develop a close, if risky, friendship. When Katya suddenly goes missing, Lana realizes that she was probably the last person to see her. Some will piece together the mystery faster than Lana can, but there are still burning questions that will keep readers at the edge of their seats. Fascinating details about Bulgarian culture leaven this gripping tale of the consequences of obsession. Petrova is off to a promising start. Agent: Lisa Grubka, Fletcher & Company.

April 15, 2019
A mother-to-be stalks her mentally ill egg donor in this debut novel. After three miscarriages and eight in vitro fertilization procedures, Lana Stone, a 38-year-old art curator, is very ready to get pregnant--right up until the moment when her partner, college professor Tyler Jones, leaves her after eight years of cohabitation. Lana suspects an affair but opts to go ahead with the next egg transfer on her own, and it's finally successful. When she spots her supposedly anonymous egg donor--whose picture she had seen but whom she only knew as CN8635--on the subway, Lana can't help but follow and befriend the younger woman. Katya Dimitrova is a lonely college student. She's been hooking up with Damian, who has a violent temper, and flirting with her mental health counselor, Josh Wozniak. The tone turns from cool to creepy as Katya insinuates herself into Lana's life and Lana realizes their friendship is very wrong. When Katya goes missing, Lana is determined to discover whether Tyler, among other suspects, was involved. Lana is an engaging and sympathetic protagonist. Katya is a troubled and rather dreary victim burdened with a lot of backstory. Tyler, the third of the three first-person point-of-view characters, is little-heard but offers some of the most sympathetic moments as he struggles to cope with the fallout from Lana's fertility obsession. A credible but underwhelming ending mars this otherwise suspenseful, contemporary, and twisty thriller.

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May 1, 2019
This psychological suspense story rests on a coincidence and sometimes skids off the road of narrative credibility, but it is ultimately rewarding. The coincidence is that a woman battling infertility by getting an egg donor recognizes the face of her donor on the subway. Stretch this to the infertile woman actually following, starting up a conversation with, and getting to know the donor. If you can suspend disbelief this far, you'll get caught up in two first-person narratives, that of the egg recipient, an art curator, and that of the donor, a college student. Petrova is expert at showing how desperate both these women are?one for fertility and wholeness, the other for forgiveness and validation. It's the donor who pushes boundaries, engaging in more and more destructive behavior, until we learn she's disappeared. Would-be mother becomes both suspect and detective into the student's previous twisty life. This is an uneven novel, but its darkness and wild resolution will appeal to many readers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)