Synopsis:
Susannah is eight weeks pregnant and tending bar at a wedding reception in the Vermont mountains. Then the storm rolls in, and so do the cleaning women.
Pale, quiet, dressed like they walked out of another century. They didn’t come for the wedding, they came for what she’s carrying—something they lost a long time ago. And they’ll kill to get it back.
Cut off by the storm, with only her wits, her friends, and whatever’s been left behind at the bar, Susannah has one night to figure out how to stop them—before they take what they came for.
The Unbegotten is a gothic-toned supernatural horror story for readers who love tragic monsters, small-town dread, and a heroine who’s outmatched but never out of options.
Shop The Book: The Unbegotten
Shop The Author: Sarah P Blanchard
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Woah. The Unbegotten is daaark and gruesome, and I LOVED IT!
If you were stranded by a storm and strangers who looked like they belonged to another century showed up, would you trust your gut and run, or tell yourself you were imagining things?
The Story
Susannah is eight weeks pregnant and tending bar at a wedding reception in the Vermont mountains. Then the storm rolls in, and so do the cleaning women: pale, quiet, and dressed like they walked out of another century. They didn’t come for the wedding. They came for what she’s carrying, something they lost a long time ago, and they’ll kill to get it back. Cut off by the storm, with only her wits, her friends, and whatever’s been left behind at the bar, Susannah has one night to stop them before they take what they came for.
Reading Experience
I loved this book so much that I read it in one sitting. It starts off creepy and mysterious, with that slow, unsettling feeling that something isn’t right, and then it quickly turns horrifying and grotesque. Once it gets going, it does not hold back. And being stranded by the storm gave the whole story such an adrenaline rush. Cut off, outnumbered, with only one night to survive? I could not put it down.
Characters
Susannah is so relatable. She has so much weighing on her heart and her mind, and she has to dig deep within herself to fight off… whatever is happening around her.
And the cleaning women are written so beautifully! They’re described in such an eerie way that they could be a real red flag, or possibly just a figment of Susannah’s imagination. Either way, the chills were so real that at one point I caught myself looking over my shoulder while reading about them.
Heartbeat
What I love, love, love most is the twisted “why” behind all the mysterious happenings. I won’t say a word about it, but it’s dark in the best way.
Final Thoughts
If you love horror that goes full dark and doesn’t flinch, this one is for you.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from Inside Story. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
In her fiction, Sarah P. Blanchard writes about conflicted people making difficult decisions in impossible situations, sometimes with positive outcomes. She’s especially drawn to flawed, compassionate characters who believe they must battle their demons alone and complex antagonists who feel they have nothing to lose.
New England-born and raised, Sarah earned her B.A. in English literature from the University of Connecticut and an M.B.A. from Nichols College in Massachusetts. She taught at the University of Hawaii-Hilo, Hawaii Community College, and UNC-Asheville’s OLLI Program.
She was a nominee for the 2025 Pushcart Prize, a finalist for the 2024 Porch Prize for short fiction and the 2021 Doris Betts Fiction Prize, and the winner of the 1993 National League of American Pen Women’s Dorothy Daniels Fiction Award.
Sarah is the author of two novels Grabtown (2025) and Drawn from Life (2024). Other releases include the short story collections Rift Zone (2025) and a poetry chapbook (river, horse, morning) released in 2024. She is also the editor of two short story collections (Stories to Go, 2020 and 2021) and a poetry anthology (Shared Journeys, 2025); and the author/co-author of three books on horse training (1993-2007).
After many years away from New England, Sarah and her husband Rich now reside again in northeastern Connecticut.
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