Almost ready!
In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.
Log in Create accountLimited-time offer
Get two free audiobooks when you make the switch!
Now’s a great time to shop indie. When you start a new membership supporting local bookstores with promo code SWITCH, we’ll give you two bonus audiobook credits at sign-up.
Make the switchGift audiobook credit bundles
You pick the number of credits, your recipient picks the audiobooks, and your local bookstore is supported by your purchase.
Start giftingMother of Invention
This audiobook uses AI narration.
We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn more“It’s refreshing to read about motherhood as stated in its baldest, truest terms, and Tessa’s struggles with the life/work balance are moving and all too real…Tessa’s journey is hard to resist, and the questions raised by the prospect of shorter pregnancies—would they really empower women, or just make it mandatory for them to bear children as quickly as possible?—feel downright prescient.” —The New York Times Book Review
What will a mother sacrifice to have it all?
Meet Silicon Valley executive Tessa Callahan, a woman passionate about the power of technology to transform women’s lives. Her company’s latest invention, the Seahorse Solution, includes a breakthrough procedure that safely accelerates human pregnancy from nine months to nine weeks, along with other major upgrades to a woman’s experience of early maternity.
The inaugural human trial of Seahorse will change the future of motherhood—and it’s Tessa’s job to monitor the first volunteer mothers-to-be. She’ll be their advocate and confidante. She’ll allay their doubts and soothe their anxieties. But when Tessa discovers disturbing truths behind the transformative technology she’s championed, her own fear begins to rock her faith in the Seahorse Solution. With each new secret Tessa uncovers, she realizes that the endgame is too inconceivable to imagine.
Caeli Wolfson Widger’s bold and timely novel examines the fraught sacrifices that women make to succeed in both career and family against a backdrop of technological innovation. It’s a story of friendship, risk, betrayal, and redemption—and an unnerving interrogation of a future in which women can engineer their lives as never before.
Caeli Wolfson Widger is the author of the novel Real Happy Family. Her other work has appeared in numerous literary journals, the New York Times Magazine, and Amazon’s Day One and on NPR. Caeli lives with her husband and three children in Santa Monica, California, where she runs a recruiting firm focused on tech start-ups.
More about Caeli can be found on her website, www.caeliwidger.com; on Facebook at www.facebook.com/caeliwidgerauthor; or on Twitter at @wolfwidge.
Reviews
“Complicated relationships, imperfect technology, and a semidystopian backstory make this an intriguing read. For fans of Dave Eggers’s The Circle and the novels of Max Barry.” —Library Journal
“It’s funny, sad, scary, thoughtful, and essential for anyone who has ever said of a working mother, ‘I don’t know how she does it.’” —The Washington Post
“The author takes great care with the plot and the characters, both of which are well written…Themes of morality and conspiracy abound, giving readers much to ponder.” —Booklist
Expand reviews