Queen Mab

There is a changeling in this story, but who is it? Madeleine, a promising grad student in Victorian literature, is newly married when her baby daughter Maud arrives-perfect despite a traumatic labour. But just a few nights into their life, something seems amiss. Maud never stops crying. Her hunger is insatiable. Her eyes glint with a kind of ancient mischief. Could Maud be a fairy child, swapped when she wasn't playing attention? Is her real daughter elsewhere, dancing in the half-light with sprites and foxes? As her husband Tom continues about his day-to-day, working toward a promotion, Madeleine slips further into violent visions. Panicked at her lack of maternal love and shut out from her old life, she turns to what she knows best, literature, for answers. The old myths and stories end in sorrow and bloodshed, after all the fairies don't just kidnap babies-they're partial to young women too. Is Maud the changeling, or is it Madeleine? And if she's been swapped, how will she find her way back? Queen Mab is a riveting portrait of madness, motherhood, the myths that haunt us and the families who keep us tethered.

Emily McBride is a Canadian-born editor, writer and translator living in Barcelona. Her work has been published in The Nation, The Rumpus and The Stinging Fly. Queen Mab is her debut novel.