In this electrifying horror debut that’s equal parts funny and harrowing, a stealth trans woman desperate to maintain her picture-perfect life discovers that she’s seemingly—impossibly—pregnant.
"Carrying is a totally original (stomach-turning, laugh-out-loud, horrifying, heartwarming) work of art." —Marisa Kashino, USA Today bestselling author of Best Offer Wins
Everything Martha’s wanted, she’s made for herself.
Meet Martha: perfect wife, perfect stepmother, perfect woman. She’s got an adoring husband who wants more kids with her, a loving stepdaughter who looks up to her, and a body to die for. She’s an absolute pro: Salon-quality blowouts at home? Done. Perfectly plated meals on the table every day? Effortless. Meticulously faked miscarriages so her husband won’t suspect the truth? Just hand over the Oscar now.
Martha is trans, so stealth even her family has no idea. She carved the woman she is out of the marble of a boy, and she’ll do whatever it takes to protect what she’s built. When a mysterious chronic illness and its debilitating symptoms threaten to upend her existence, she starts experimental treatments and gives in to her surprising, unsettling cravings. She’s even more shocked to discover that she’s undeniably, impossibly pregnant.
With her body changing rapidly outside of her control and her choices dwindling, Martha struggles to maintain the life she’s fought so hard to live while preparing for the motherhood she never thought she’d have.
Release date:
October 6, 2026
Publisher:
G.P. Putnam's Sons
Print pages:
304
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Chapter 1
Can I get two pounds of bone-in, skin-on chicken breast?"
The butcher wipes his hands on a bloodstained apron, a smile peeking out underneath his mustache. "Coming right up, beautiful."
Martha's a vision in a light blue wrap dress and just the right amount of makeup for a happily married thirty-nine-year-old in Brentwood on this August Sunday. She carries herself like a '50s housewife, except for the Apple Watch and the tasteful hint of Botox.
He returns with the chicken in butcher paper and hands it to her.
"Could I also get a quarter pound of beef liver?"
"You got it."
"And do you have pig's blood?"
"We might have some frozen in the back. What are you making? Blood sausage?"
A smile creeps across her face, revealing her perfectly white Tic Tac teeth. "An old family recipe."
Chapter 2
Still in the wrap dress, Martha sits on her toilet with the lid down, ever so patiently shaping the beef liver with a pair of scissors. She makes small cuts, removing only the tiniest slices with each snip. She doesn't have time to go back to the butcher if she cuts too much.
Martha loves this toilet. When she redesigned the bathroom, she sat on a thousand thrones before she selected this one, sleek and Japanese. She didn't go insane with remodeling when she moved in; she just implemented a few key changes to make it her own. To make it feel like no other woman had lived there. She knew Leon wasn't looking for a new life entirely, only a new wife to make his life whole again. A less savvy second wife would have gone bombastic and torn up the whole house, but Martha picks her battles wisely. It's Enid's house too; no kid wants to live through a major renovation.
But the primary bathroom had to go. This had been her first true wifely duty. Even if it was only different by one single bathroom, the home would never be the same after: It would be hers. It wasn't too difficult, using the guest bathroom during the renovation, being extra careful that Enid couldn't hear them canoodling in the shower.
Martha admires her work. The beef liver is perfect, a small amorphous shape about the size of her big toe. Okay, wait, actually, one more trim. Ah. Now it's perfect. She finds the red-purple totem quite adorable, like the newborn squirrel abandoned by its mother that she found in her backyard when she was six, doomed to perish despite Martha's best juvenile efforts to save it. Her creation squishes gently in her hand. She almost wants to keep it, but it has an important job to do.
She stands, lifts the toilet lid, and drops the liver into the bowl. It hits the water with a gentle plop. She looks down at her little pet, the maroon in sharp contrast to the spotless white porcelain.
With the back of her hand, Martha smudges her mascara a bit. She doesn't want to look too theatrical, only like she'd been crying a little. She looks in the mirror and rubs her eye makeup a touch more. Perfect, lived-in.
She opens the small plastic container of coagulated pig blood, loosened back to a liquid state with a dash of vinegar and a few minutes in the microwave. A delicate splash of blood mixes into the toilet water. She doesn't want to turn the bowl completely red; otherwise you wouldn't even be able to see her creation. Of course she could have just used red food coloring and corn syrup, but that would've been too Halloween. The scent of blood hits so right-tangy, acrid, sharp in the nose. Syrupy sweetness would've given the whole thing away.
She dips her fingers into the blood, reaches under her dress, and pulls off her panties. An old pair, just as she planned. The crimson quickly spreads across the crotch, covering up the floral pattern. She drops the underwear onto the floor. No, no. She fusses, picking them back up. Too haphazardly thrown. She needs to set the scene more precisely.
She sits back on the toilet, feeling strange perched on top of her pet, like the tender thing at the bottom of the bowl might come back to life and slither inside her body, where it supposedly came from. She pulls her panties over her feet and gives a slight kick. There we go. They crumple on the floor by her feet in grisly tragedy-impeccable.
Now this is the part that's going to hurt.
She has to stain the dress. She loves this wrap dress dearly. It makes her breasts look bountiful and perky, her waist tight, her hips perfect for bearing Leon's child. And that's why she must say goodbye to it. To really sell this, she must lose something that she loves. A true sacrifice in this ritual for it to work. It's only fair.
With her unblemished hand, she pulls her dress up. She dabs some blood onto her crotch, cold against the warmth of her loins. She lets some of it drip on her thigh, then wipes it away with a small piece of toilet paper. It has to look wiped, but not entirely clean. She drops the toilet paper into the bowl.
Martha feels no disgust at the pig blood touching her privates, but she winces when the dress falls onto the wetness. This garment was thrifted vintage Cavalli; she'll never find it again. The deep red pools on the periwinkle fabric. Closing the container of blood, she puts it into the small trash can by the sink.
She checks Leon's location on her phone; his handsome picture on Find My races dangerously toward her own blue dot, mere minutes away. She exhales sharply and ties the garbage bag closed, carefully carrying it out.
And through the bedroom, not letting it leak.
Down the hallway, past the guest room and Enid's room.
Past the kitchen. She already composed the mise-en-scène elegantly-smoke trickling out of the oven vent from burning Sunday dinner, rapidly blackening chicken breast and root vegetables.
And, finally, into the dark garage.
Martha yelps, her ankle twisting. She falls forward, right onto her hands, dropping the garbage bag beside her. "Goddammit, Leon."
She quickly pulls herself up and looks down to see the cause of her stumble: her husband's toolbox on the floor. She huffs and picks it up, returning it to the worktable where it belongs, which she has told him to do countless times. She squints, annoyed that she can't even reprimand him for his carelessness this time.
The garage door roars to life.
Shit.
From the slit of the door opening, the light from the outside world bursts through the darkness.
She shoves the garbage bag into the big black can, reshuffles the large kitchen trash so that it covers her evidence, then races out right before she can be seen from the car.
Back in the kitchen, she ignores the increasing plume of smoke from the oven.
She's nearly made it back to the bedroom when she hears Enid enter the house and say, "It smells like something's burning."
Martha reaches the bedroom. She's so close.
The smoke detector blares.
Leon calls out, "Martha! Something is smoking!"
In the bathroom now, she doesn't respond. She closes the door, but not entirely; she wants him to see her through the crack. Setting the scene, she throws herself on the ground against the sink. She spreads her legs and pulls up the dress so that he'll see a hint of the bloody portrait painted on her crotch.
"Martha?" Leon, fearful, calls out over the beeps of the smoke detector.
She works herself up to fake cry, quivering her eyes and lips. No actual tears fall-she's no trained actress, after all-so she covers her eyes with her hand. Her voice crackles, barely eking out the faintest moan: "In here . . ."
"The chicken must be completely bu-" Leon looks through the crack of the open door, gasping at what he finds. He opens it and enters, terrified. "Martha!?" He softens when he pieces together the clues. He whimpers, "Baby."
Hook, line, and sucker. Eagerly waiting for him to hold her, she whispers, "Leon."
He glances at the toilet, shutting his eyes tight when he sees it. He slams the lid closed with a hard clack. The horrible thing out of sight, he reopens his eyes and flushes the bloody mess. He lowers himself to the floor and puts his arm around her. The smoke detector still blaring loudly from the other room, he coos, "My baby, my baby." She isn't sure if he's talking about her or the thing going down the sewer pipe.
Enid screams, "Someone shut off the alarm!"
Martha buries her face in his shoulder. Eyes glossy, he starts to tear up. "Let's get you to the doctor, to Roger."
"I haven't bled in half an hour," she replies weakly. "It's over. I don't need a doctor."
"I AM NOT TALL ENOUGH TO FAN THE SMOKE DETECTOR!" Enid yells. "YOU NEED TO DO IT!" Fully crying now, Leon ignores his child. Enid marches to the doorway, fingers in her ears, yelling: "YOU NEED TO TURN OFF THE ALARM."
The girl's eyes stretch wide as she takes in the scene. At eleven, she might vaguely understand what's happening.
Leon startles. He rushes over to his daughter, hastily wiping his tears away. "Martha is-she's sick. Give her some space." He pushes Enid back slightly and gently closes the door behind him.
With the door closed, Martha stands.
She hears Enid ask, "What's wrong? Is she okay?"
Martha doesn't like hearing fear in her stepdaughter's voice, but she's grateful her husband is already out of the room, before he could really closely examine the blood on her thigh.
She undoes the knot of her bloodstained wrap dress. It falls to the floor.
"She'll be okay," Leon murmurs to Enid, the smoke detector punctuating his words. "Now get a stool so you can fan the alarm."
Martha calls out, "Go with her."
"Okay, I'll be right back."
Naked, she pulls back the shower curtain with a whoosh. She steps into the cool porcelain and turns on the water, extra hot. She stands under the stream, wetting her hair, face, perky breasts, slender waist, firm ass. The blood washes from her thighs, swirling into the drain.
The smoke detector finally stops.
Martha grins-success.
Chapter 3
Martha sits up in bed, warm under her down comforter. Even in a burning hot Los Angeles summer, she likes getting under the blankets with the air conditioner blasting. She and Leon typically sleep Scandinavian-style with separate comforters, a method she found on TikTok-she appreciates her beauty rest.
A show about interior designers in Beverly Hills, a longtime favorite of hers, plays on the television. When she first watched these home renovation shows in her twenties, living in a cramped studio downtown, squishing a never-ending army of cockroaches, it was all aspirational. She dreamed of a life where people were getting into serious arguments over which shade of burgundy the drapes should be. Now her home is more expensive than the ones on the shows. Sure, it's smaller, less gaudy, but only because the people on the show claim they're in LA when they're really in the Valley or Orange County or even dangerously close to San Diego, a fate she would not accept, no matter how many extra rooms she could have there. She loves her chic Brentwood one-story home: modern, elegant, classy, with lots of glass and sunshine. Leon's first wife picked right.
Martha's so entranced by the gay interior designer that she almost forgets she's supposed to be feigning sadness when Leon walks in. She smiles at him for a moment before she adjusts like she's putting on a brave face through the pain.
"Tofu and vegetables with brown sauce from Fortune House." Leon approaches the bed with a steaming plate. He smiles with his lips closed-the lines edging his green eyes make her feel weak. He's a clean-cut, attractive man, his wrinkles making him look even more handsome, distinguished, while hers are to be buffed away.
Martha would normally never eat in bed. She often yells at Leon for indulging in this gluttonous act; breaking her own rule will really drive home how hard this is for her. He hands her the plate of Chinese takeout and sits next to her. He puts a hand on her shoulder and massages. Always affectionate, he's particularly tender with his touch tonight.
Leon never cooks. He admitted that when he was a single father, he always ordered in. The only home-cooked meals then were made by his mother. Nothing was ever going to come out as well as his deceased wife had made it, so Uber Eats and Postmates and DoorDash were his coparents until Martha entered his life.
Martha is a fantastic chef. It's what she lives for. There is truly nothing that gives her more joy than nourishing her family and the praise that comes with it, the mmms and empty plates for her to put in the dishwasher. And since she hasn't earned a dollar in years, she needs to emphasize culinarily just how lost her family would be without her.
To sell the performance, she had to do something she's never done before-burn perfectly good chicken breast to a crisp. Leon disposed of the ashen debris and ordered dinner without even asking her what she wanted. He just knows what she needs.
"Did I completely traumatize her?" She picks up her fork and starts eating, always careful not to speak with food in her mouth.
"No, no," Leon stammers. "Sure, a little startled, but she's okay."
Martha doesn't believe that. Of course she feels bad that she potentially traumatized the girl, but she accepts it as necessary collateral damage.
He adds, "I told her you were dealing with a 'girl problem.'"
She stifles a giggle. Obviously that was a horrible thing to say, but she's amused by his incompetence. How had he ever managed without her? "Now she's going to think that's her future: a bloody mess on the bathroom floor."
"Martha-"
"I'll talk to her tomorrow." Martha will make it a learning experience. "It's best if it comes from me."
"What you need to do is recover."
"I'll talk to Roger tomorrow morning. And I can throw in a little talk with Enid after school."
"What are you going to say?"
"She's eleven. That's not too young to talk about these things."
He massages deeper into Martha's shoulder. In his head, his daughter will always be the five-year-old crying in his arms when her mother died. He doesn't challenge Martha's judgment. "Why don't I take the day off and come with you?"
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