Die Leihmutter

The contract doesn't end at signing. It ends when the child arrives.

Deep in debt after her mother's death, Mara Ellison accepts the most generous offer of her life: she'll carry the child of the wealthy Renwick couple, moving into their remote coastal estate, Ashcroft, in exchange. Cared for around the clock, every reading monitored, every meal counted — and soon, every door locked.

Then Mara learns there was a surrogate before her. Her child is alive. She herself never came back. Mara used to read medical charts and curves for a living — and when she lays her own numbers beside the missing woman's, they align exactly. Following a plan that ends in week thirty-four.

Her contract contains a clause she never read. To prove what's happening in this house, Mara has only a few weeks left — and the certainty that any escape would endanger the child that isn't hers. Because at Ashcroft, in the end, only one thing matters more than the surrogate: the child she's carrying. And there's always a next one.

A psychological thriller about care that becomes a trap — and the question of who a body belongs to when it's carrying someone else's life.