Mother Is Watching, Karma Brown (Review by Kristin Kurek)

Over the 2025 holidays, Karma Brown spoke with The Gloss Book Club in a discussion about her newest Christmas novel. At that time, she spoke about writing Mother Is Watching, a foray into the horror genre. She explained that reading horror is just as much of an escape as any other genre. This was such an “ah ha” moment for me. I have read very little horror in my literary past. But, that moment changed my perspective and sent me headlong in my horror reading era.

Mother Is Watching is set in Savannah, Georgia in the near future. Tilly Crewson is an art conservator who is working on a top-secret conservation project to repair a burned piece authored by a macabre artist with only three other known pieces of work. A pandemic has left a large majority of the male population unable to reproduce, and birthrates have fallen. But, soon after receiving the painting, Tilly finds that she is unexpectantly pregnant. Simultaneously, Tilly and her family experience terrifying events: strange bruises, swarms of moths, visions of her dead mother, and hallucinations. Tilly must break free from the terrors of the painting to save herself and her growing family.

As promised, Mother Is Watching is glorious escapism. Karma Brown has constructed a novel that is a propulsive read: deeply disturbing but not overly graphic. I was certainly horrified by the painting pulsing with spinal fluid, a child being choked by moths, or a dismembered head falling onto the dinner table. But, I was equally disturbed by the treatment of women in the dystopian world in which Tilly lives. In an effort to increase the population, society is obsessed with motherhood and removes a large degree of women’s autonomy in child-bearing decisions. Each page left me unsettled.

I flew through this book and haven’t stopped thinking about it since. This is a wonderful read for horror fans or those non-horror readers looking for some excitement!