Impoverished, widowed single mom Carrie Pace thinks that her five-year run of terrible luck has finally come to an end when she is hired to be a surrogate for a wealthy pair of Hollywood A-listers.
The deal: live on their property, all expenses paid, until she has borne and weaned a child for them. At the end of that time, she will receive $500,000 with which to restart her life. It sounds too good to be true...and unfortunately, it is.
Problems start when Carrie and her son move into a cottage on the property and she begins treatment under the couple’s fertility doctor. She soon learns that her new job comes with some catches she never expected.
The child she’s soon carrying has a controlling biological mother and a biological father with a wandering eye pointed at his surrogate.
As Carrie gets nearer to her due date, things take a sinister turn. When she discovers the truth, can she save herself, her son, and the unborn child from the mortal danger that masquerades as friend?
This book was so utterly ridiculous that I still can't believe I actually made it to the end. And honestly, that pains me to say because there was a somewhat, heavy emphasis on the somewhat, solid premise hiding underneath all of the nonsense.
We first meet Carrie, a down-on-her-luck single mother whose husband was killed in combat overseas. Unfortunately, she isn't receiving the benefits she's entitled to as a wartime widow because apparently there's some confusion over whether her husband acted outside of his orders or something along those lines. Exactly what the issue was remained somewhat unclear, but what I do know is that it made absolutely no sense for this to have been dragged out for as long as the author claimed it had been. And I say that as someone who was married to a soldier who served in combat.
Of course, because apparently Carrie didn't have enough problems already, we later find out that her husband was also unfaithful to her pretty much throughout their marriage. Why this particular detail was necessary to the story is beyond me. You don't need to have been cheated on to know that cheating is awful, but I digress.
Initially, things proceed pretty much as you'd expect. A notorious Hollywood power couple, Alanna and Sterling, hire Carrie to be their surrogate. They meet, sign all the necessary NDAs and contracts, and then BOOM, Carrie and her young son are moved into one of the three guesthouses on the couple's gated property. Then come the rules.
Carrie is required to meet with a personal trainer three times a week. She has to submit to weekly blood tests to make sure she's not using drugs, despite repeatedly insisting that she doesn't. She's also expected to eat only the foods Alanna approves. At first, Carrie goes along with all of this because, well, she's going to be carrying their baby. I can understand why she'd tolerate some of these demands, even if they're excessive.
Then everything, as tends to happen in this type of book, goes completely off the rails.
For starters, there is absolutely no reason Sterling needs to accompany Carrie to her appointments especially after the increasingly inappropriate comments he makes toward her. And Alanna's behavior becomes progressively more ridiculous once Carrie is actually pregnant.
Who demands that a pregnant woman survive primarily on smoothies because apparently they have all the nutrients she needs? Who refuses to evacuate a property when there is a fire nearby and an evacuation order has been issued? Alanna, apparently. For someone who supposedly cares so much about this baby, she sure seems willing to put both Carrie and the baby in danger whenever her delusions demand it.
And naturally, Alanna couldn't possibly be the only completely unhinged person in this marriage. Because if you're going to give us an over-the-top wife, you apparently need an equally over-the-top husband. Enter Sterling. It turns out he's not merely a lecherous creep. No, he's a man who will stop at absolutely nothing, and I mean nothing, to get what he wants. And naturally, that comes with consequences of its own. By this point, the book is basically racing toward a conclusion that has become painfully obvious. Alanna and Sterling aren't what they initially appeared to be, and Carrie, because she's poor and desperate, has been taken advantage of.
As Carrie's pregnancy progresses, so does Alanna's descent into complete paranoia. Eventually she's screaming at her security team to lock Carrie in the basement because Carrie is apparently trying to "steal her baby," all while cursing and berating her in front of Carrie's young son, Benny. Because nothing says this will be a stable environment for a child quite like that.
And then, because apparently this story hadn't already thrown enough at us, Carrie along with Alanna's personal assistant Maggie discover a body in the lake on the property. From there, things somehow manage to get even more ridiculous. Alanna becomes so completely unhinged that she manages to remove one of the security guard's guns from its holster from behind him. As someone who knows a little bit about the type of holsters typically used by people who carry firearms for security, I'm just going to say... that's completely beyond the realm of plausible and leave it at that.
There is a scuffle. Things happen. The baby is eventually born. Alanna gets what is coming to her, and Carrie finally gets the happy ending she's been desperately waiting for. And honestly? By that point, I was just relieved it was over.
Overall, this was another book that ended up being a complete waste of my time. There was a potentially interesting story here, but the increasingly ridiculous behavior and implausible situations completely overshadowed it. I do, however, have one more book with a surrogate theme sitting on my list to try. So here's hoping THAT one will finally check all the boxes I've been looking for without requiring me to completely abandon reality along the way.
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