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Queen Mab
Not yet published
Expected 4 Aug 26In this debut novel, a new mother—a scholar steeped in fairy lore—wrestles with the legacies and madness of motherhood.
There is a changeling in this story—but who is it?
Madeleine is young for motherhood, a promising grad student in Victorian and modernist literature, twenty-three and not long married. Even her mother worries about the timing. But Madeleine’s ambivalence is pushed aside by Tom’s elation and her own desire to bring new life into a world marked by loss.
Then comes Maud, perfect and fresh, despite a traumatic labor. But just a few nights into their life, something seems amiss. Maud is changed. The child never stops crying. Her hunger is insatiable. Her eyes glint with some kind of ancient mischief. Could Maud be a fairy child, swapped when Madeleine wasn’t paying attention? Is the real Maud dancing in the half-light, with the fairies and the foxes? Did the gray cat hide her behind the hedge?
Tom goes about the day-to-day, working toward a promotion and urging Madeleine to connect with other moms. Her parents come to clean out her grandmother’s house, her father newly obsessed with genealogy and DNA tests. Madeleine, interrupted by violent visions, panicked at her lack of maternal love, shut out from her old life, frantically searches for answers. The old stories end in sorrow and bloodshed, and the fairies don’t just kidnap babies—they’re also partial to young women. Is Maud the changeling, or is Madeleine? And if she’s been swapped, how will she find her way back?
Emily McBride’s Queen Mab is a riveting portrait of madness, motherhood, the myths that haunt us, and the families who keep us tethered.
There is a changeling in this story—but who is it?
Madeleine is young for motherhood, a promising grad student in Victorian and modernist literature, twenty-three and not long married. Even her mother worries about the timing. But Madeleine’s ambivalence is pushed aside by Tom’s elation and her own desire to bring new life into a world marked by loss.
Then comes Maud, perfect and fresh, despite a traumatic labor. But just a few nights into their life, something seems amiss. Maud is changed. The child never stops crying. Her hunger is insatiable. Her eyes glint with some kind of ancient mischief. Could Maud be a fairy child, swapped when Madeleine wasn’t paying attention? Is the real Maud dancing in the half-light, with the fairies and the foxes? Did the gray cat hide her behind the hedge?
Tom goes about the day-to-day, working toward a promotion and urging Madeleine to connect with other moms. Her parents come to clean out her grandmother’s house, her father newly obsessed with genealogy and DNA tests. Madeleine, interrupted by violent visions, panicked at her lack of maternal love, shut out from her old life, frantically searches for answers. The old stories end in sorrow and bloodshed, and the fairies don’t just kidnap babies—they’re also partial to young women. Is Maud the changeling, or is Madeleine? And if she’s been swapped, how will she find her way back?
Emily McBride’s Queen Mab is a riveting portrait of madness, motherhood, the myths that haunt us, and the families who keep us tethered.
304 pages, Hardcover
Expected publication August 4, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and Farrar, Straus and Giroux, a division of Macmillan Publishers for an advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Wow! Right out of the gate, I knew this book was going to be special. The author immediately earned my trust and I knew my time would be well spent here. At times fantastical, unsettling, and experimental, this novel proves how fiction is used to convey much deeper truths. In the words of our Protagonist, “call it a madness, call it a metaphor, but that did not make it untrue.” Interspersed with poetry, songs and other quotes, we follow Madeleine “Queen Mab” Brodeur on her journey from literary studies student to reluctant expecting mother through achieving, “a woman’s greatest accomplishment, people said.” While this is being classified as literary fiction, some sections read like a fantasy horror novel to me which I loved. At one point I started envisioning scenes from The Labyrinth with David Bowie, and then a few scenes later McBride name-drops Goblin Market which the movie is based on! The signs were well placed.
From the outset, I immediately felt grounded in the narrator. As the story progressed, the narration/POV changes from first to third person so seamlessly that I didn’t recognize it at first. It was masterfully done!
“I rummaged in my mind through all the books I had ever read, which was always my first response in a crisis.”
“My world was still a patchwork of other people’s words. It had shape as long as I could find a quote for all the pivotal moments. But I didn’t want to be alone in the narrative.”
“(And it was her last afternoon as herself.)”
The first chapter comes out swinging with the descriptive imagery, almost hyper-saturated. The line by line writing throughout was really strong. Great variation in sentence length so everything flowed and kept it punchy. Great descriptions of how the characters looked and presented themselves.
I loved how the author introduced one character at a time and showed them in contrast to other characters so the reader can more easily distinguish them on the page. Each new character is introduced with very distinct way of speaking and the characters felt entirely unique right off the bat. Marie with her brusk and challenging demeanor. Maddie's mother putting “air quotes” in her text messages to emphasize things. Each character has a distinct voice.
I am not a fan of romance because the majority of romance writing feels cringey and fake. The romance here is not that. We quickly learn that Maddie is a romantic, a fan of the Victorian era and it's secure truths. Her Tom is a Postmodernist, not afraid of the chaos and complexity of modern life. From the beginning, you get the sense there is going to be conflict here. This is a real-world romance where love is tested and pushed to it’s limits, and every character is being tested.
“She needed an abundance of fairies, and soon.”
Without knowing anything about the author, I get the feeling she's writing what she deeply knows. The descriptions of the neighborhood are so rich I feel like I'm there with Madeleine. And the literary elements included throughout are placed with such care. The written word is clearly this author’s love language.
This story is a visceral reminder to me of why I am personally choosing not to have children. I've struggled with anxiety and depression the majority of my life and I fear I would get postpartum if I had a child (or maybe that’s just the anxiety talking). My last bought of anxiety brought on insomnia I've never experienced so bad before. I can't imagine feeling that way and having to care for another living thing that is completely reliant on me. I'm grateful for the author for shining a light on this topic in such an honest and expansive way.
“And then you had a child, and all that you were faded to irrelevance. You were no longer a shining figure who represented the sum of all evolution and progress. You were just a cog in a generational wheel, grinding on, your only importance the fact that you had kept the drama unfolding.”
I can also see this as a critique of motherhood in the postmodern world and how lonely the experience must be. Even in a bustling city, everyone is locked away into their own apartments without a support system to truly allow mothers the grace to recover or even learn fully about mothering from other women.
This book is very unique and unlike anything I’ve read so far. Because of that, I’m not exactly sure who I would recommend this book to except to say that everyone should read it. If you’re a woman, and maybe more importantly if you’re not. Though people with an academic/literary background with an interest in folklore and fairies will likely enjoy this more than others!
Wow! Right out of the gate, I knew this book was going to be special. The author immediately earned my trust and I knew my time would be well spent here. At times fantastical, unsettling, and experimental, this novel proves how fiction is used to convey much deeper truths. In the words of our Protagonist, “call it a madness, call it a metaphor, but that did not make it untrue.” Interspersed with poetry, songs and other quotes, we follow Madeleine “Queen Mab” Brodeur on her journey from literary studies student to reluctant expecting mother through achieving, “a woman’s greatest accomplishment, people said.” While this is being classified as literary fiction, some sections read like a fantasy horror novel to me which I loved. At one point I started envisioning scenes from The Labyrinth with David Bowie, and then a few scenes later McBride name-drops Goblin Market which the movie is based on! The signs were well placed.
From the outset, I immediately felt grounded in the narrator. As the story progressed, the narration/POV changes from first to third person so seamlessly that I didn’t recognize it at first. It was masterfully done!
“I rummaged in my mind through all the books I had ever read, which was always my first response in a crisis.”
“My world was still a patchwork of other people’s words. It had shape as long as I could find a quote for all the pivotal moments. But I didn’t want to be alone in the narrative.”
“(And it was her last afternoon as herself.)”
The first chapter comes out swinging with the descriptive imagery, almost hyper-saturated. The line by line writing throughout was really strong. Great variation in sentence length so everything flowed and kept it punchy. Great descriptions of how the characters looked and presented themselves.
I loved how the author introduced one character at a time and showed them in contrast to other characters so the reader can more easily distinguish them on the page. Each new character is introduced with very distinct way of speaking and the characters felt entirely unique right off the bat. Marie with her brusk and challenging demeanor. Maddie's mother putting “air quotes” in her text messages to emphasize things. Each character has a distinct voice.
I am not a fan of romance because the majority of romance writing feels cringey and fake. The romance here is not that. We quickly learn that Maddie is a romantic, a fan of the Victorian era and it's secure truths. Her Tom is a Postmodernist, not afraid of the chaos and complexity of modern life. From the beginning, you get the sense there is going to be conflict here. This is a real-world romance where love is tested and pushed to it’s limits, and every character is being tested.
“She needed an abundance of fairies, and soon.”
Without knowing anything about the author, I get the feeling she's writing what she deeply knows. The descriptions of the neighborhood are so rich I feel like I'm there with Madeleine. And the literary elements included throughout are placed with such care. The written word is clearly this author’s love language.
This story is a visceral reminder to me of why I am personally choosing not to have children. I've struggled with anxiety and depression the majority of my life and I fear I would get postpartum if I had a child (or maybe that’s just the anxiety talking). My last bought of anxiety brought on insomnia I've never experienced so bad before. I can't imagine feeling that way and having to care for another living thing that is completely reliant on me. I'm grateful for the author for shining a light on this topic in such an honest and expansive way.
“And then you had a child, and all that you were faded to irrelevance. You were no longer a shining figure who represented the sum of all evolution and progress. You were just a cog in a generational wheel, grinding on, your only importance the fact that you had kept the drama unfolding.”
I can also see this as a critique of motherhood in the postmodern world and how lonely the experience must be. Even in a bustling city, everyone is locked away into their own apartments without a support system to truly allow mothers the grace to recover or even learn fully about mothering from other women.
This book is very unique and unlike anything I’ve read so far. Because of that, I’m not exactly sure who I would recommend this book to except to say that everyone should read it. If you’re a woman, and maybe more importantly if you’re not. Though people with an academic/literary background with an interest in folklore and fairies will likely enjoy this more than others!
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Sales pitchery is going to try to sell this to you as a mirage of magical realism, and you can read magic into it, but more importantly, to me, it's a book that contends with postpartum psychosis.
I am not going to spoiler tag this impression, because I think the book needs to reach the right people. We don't talk about this enough. We might not even know about it, since on average our understanding of new motherhood is that the worst you're allowed to be is depressed. The depression is even allowed to be fairly profound, with the acknowledgement that it is a temporary experience due to childbirth that we've pretty much got sorted now. We (culturally) don't like psychotic illness to begin with but we really don't like it from a mom. Once you're a mom you're supposed to serve the needs of a fundamentally helpless smaller human, not become the person with desperate need themselves.
I can't speak for the specifics but I do know what it's like to divorce the understanding of the world that other people have, and Emily McBride is fluent in this. From what I know of babies and mothers, what a keen understanding of the exhaustion and the minutiae and the change of status from single being to--not "parent," but mother specifically. This, her capacity for character writing, and her insights born on neat turns of phrase, and her fluency in the books she and Madeleine, her protagonist, have read, make this book flow and sing.
In regards to mental illness and the absenting of mothers from focus when a baby appears, it is empathetic, stylistically thoughtful, balanced. It is resonant in the slippage of the self away from the self and the brightening of what other people can't perceive as the ultimate realness. The way that one impossible certainty slides out of view and another into focus to be understood with equal conviction, no sense of contradiction. It is clever in showing both the invisibility of a person suffering and the suffering person's tendency to force isolation into greater extremes.
The characters are fabulously realistic. Her mother, infertile and adoptive and permanently nervous with it, is a lot to swallow. I wanted to kill her husband the ENTIRE TIME. Her father is accidentally callous and forever loving. Her friends and colleagues in academia make perfect sense. Madeleine, making the worst decisions of her life and having no idea what's going on, I am constantly rooting for even when I know what's happening is not good. She is just so winning--a character you understand immediately, whom you occupy fully even as she takes you to the bottom of a lake. Often in this book I paused over a line, because the author understands people so clearly.
Her decision to make Madeleine an adopted daughter who then questions the nature of the relationship between herself and her own daughter is smart and made use of.
Her description of place, neighborhood, neighbors--all rich, all evocative, all there.
As far as the slip into faerie understandings of the world goes, I think it's successful. I am interested to see how other people take it, but it's a thoughtful continuation of Madeleine's character; she is given context at the beginning for where she goes and because both McBride and Madeleine are immersed in that context, it feels for the most part very natural.
I think I can imagine a version of this story that I loved more, but I really, really liked it--I do love Madeleine. I do love McBride's understanding of the tricky intricacies of personhood. I do like the books, the reading lists and the history and the sneaking suspicion that academia is something but not necessarily enough. I do like the well-utilized shifts in perspective.
In short, an excellent and sure-handed debut by a smart author about important things, and I recommend it very much.
I am not going to spoiler tag this impression, because I think the book needs to reach the right people. We don't talk about this enough. We might not even know about it, since on average our understanding of new motherhood is that the worst you're allowed to be is depressed. The depression is even allowed to be fairly profound, with the acknowledgement that it is a temporary experience due to childbirth that we've pretty much got sorted now. We (culturally) don't like psychotic illness to begin with but we really don't like it from a mom. Once you're a mom you're supposed to serve the needs of a fundamentally helpless smaller human, not become the person with desperate need themselves.
I can't speak for the specifics but I do know what it's like to divorce the understanding of the world that other people have, and Emily McBride is fluent in this. From what I know of babies and mothers, what a keen understanding of the exhaustion and the minutiae and the change of status from single being to--not "parent," but mother specifically. This, her capacity for character writing, and her insights born on neat turns of phrase, and her fluency in the books she and Madeleine, her protagonist, have read, make this book flow and sing.
In regards to mental illness and the absenting of mothers from focus when a baby appears, it is empathetic, stylistically thoughtful, balanced. It is resonant in the slippage of the self away from the self and the brightening of what other people can't perceive as the ultimate realness. The way that one impossible certainty slides out of view and another into focus to be understood with equal conviction, no sense of contradiction. It is clever in showing both the invisibility of a person suffering and the suffering person's tendency to force isolation into greater extremes.
The characters are fabulously realistic. Her mother, infertile and adoptive and permanently nervous with it, is a lot to swallow. I wanted to kill her husband the ENTIRE TIME. Her father is accidentally callous and forever loving. Her friends and colleagues in academia make perfect sense. Madeleine, making the worst decisions of her life and having no idea what's going on, I am constantly rooting for even when I know what's happening is not good. She is just so winning--a character you understand immediately, whom you occupy fully even as she takes you to the bottom of a lake. Often in this book I paused over a line, because the author understands people so clearly.
Her decision to make Madeleine an adopted daughter who then questions the nature of the relationship between herself and her own daughter is smart and made use of.
Her description of place, neighborhood, neighbors--all rich, all evocative, all there.
As far as the slip into faerie understandings of the world goes, I think it's successful. I am interested to see how other people take it, but it's a thoughtful continuation of Madeleine's character; she is given context at the beginning for where she goes and because both McBride and Madeleine are immersed in that context, it feels for the most part very natural.
I think I can imagine a version of this story that I loved more, but I really, really liked it--I do love Madeleine. I do love McBride's understanding of the tricky intricacies of personhood. I do like the books, the reading lists and the history and the sneaking suspicion that academia is something but not necessarily enough. I do like the well-utilized shifts in perspective.
In short, an excellent and sure-handed debut by a smart author about important things, and I recommend it very much.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
"It's bondage. It's slavery on a bodily level. It eradicates you mentally and reduces you to a bargaining chip in the service of evolution."
To be fair, I was always going to be difficult to please with Queen Mab because I have just read so many books on this subject.
I do it on purpose, obviously. I seek them out because I can relate to how difficult it is to be a new mother; how impossible it is to resume your previous life; how fathers rarely have it the same. I've read everything from psychological thrillers (The Push), to tales of maternal regret (Her One Regret), to surrealist transmogrification (Nightbitch), fever dreams (The Need) and eerie fairy tales (Little Darlings).
I went into Queen Mab expecting something akin to Little Darlings, which uses the Welsh fairy tale A Brewery of Eggshells to explore postnatal depression and psychosis. The most immediate difference was a complete lack of atmosphere in this book. It wasn't eerie, it wasn't unsettling. I actually never wondered if Madeleine's psychoses were paranormal.
Madeleine experiences postpartum psychosis after the birth of her daughter, Maud. Believing her to be a changeling swapped by a fairy, she seeks out a way to get her "real" daughter back.
There was an emotional connection missing for me. The exploration of the fairy psychosis felt dry and academic, based in Yeats poetry and changeling mythology. Madeleine is a grad student and so seeks advice on the mythologies from her classmates, much of it being a discussion on fairies in literature and not the heartbreaking emotional experience I would expect when reading about someone going through something so intense.
There was obvious research that went into this, and some thoughtful literary commentary, but I really expected something more atmospheric and folksy. Maybe it helps to have different expectations; readers who are interested in the academic side of fairy mythology will probably like it more.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Rating: 3.5*
Thank you to NetGalley and publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux for a digital ARC of Emily McBride's debut novel Queen Mab.
Queen Mab begins with the inner thoughts of a young woman, Madeleine, a promising post-graduate student of Victorian literature grappling with pending motherhood and the gnawing question of identity and how she fits, within her family and the world of academia that she aspires to. Madeleine's mental wellbeing, however, begins to unravel following the birth of her daughter Maud.
McBride invites us inside the mind of a woman who is clearly suffering from postpartum depression and psychosis, and Madeleine's sense of helplessness and the cloying claustrophobia she feels is quite visceral, forcing the reader, at times, to share in the spiralling anxiety that Madeleine suffers. The detached nature of her struggle is highlighted by the visible concern shown by her boyfriend Tom, and her parents, who don't quite know how to handle the situation. While I wasn't always enamoured with the development of the plot, the pacing kept me reading and I finished this quicker than I expected. Madeleine, as a character, is well-developed and fleshed out but is not always likeable, which perhaps makes her all the more human, while secondary characters at first feel superficial and sometimes one-dimensional, they develop personality in parallel to Madeleine's descent into madness.
Although I did enjoy this debut and I am eager to see what McBride produces next, I can only reluctantly give this 3.5 stars as I found some sections at the beginning, and towards the end, somewhat overwrought. There are also many references to Victorian literature sprinkled throughout the text which makes sense considering Madeleine is a literary studies graduate, but I couldn't help but feel that now and then I was being somehow passive aggressively berated on my lack of knowledge of classic English verse. There are some references I was certainly familiar with thanks to the English curriculum in Ireland where we had to study a lot of Yeats, and Shakespeare, so I recognised a number of Yeats' poems and also the reference to Queen Mab which I recalled from Romeo and Juliet, but there are some more obscure references that might not appeal to some readers.
Despite some misgivings, I would still recommend this to readers as an intelligent and revealing exploration of postpartum mental health and how this manifested itself in Madeleine's fascination with folklore and fairies.
Thank you to NetGalley and publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux for a digital ARC of Emily McBride's debut novel Queen Mab.
Queen Mab begins with the inner thoughts of a young woman, Madeleine, a promising post-graduate student of Victorian literature grappling with pending motherhood and the gnawing question of identity and how she fits, within her family and the world of academia that she aspires to. Madeleine's mental wellbeing, however, begins to unravel following the birth of her daughter Maud.
McBride invites us inside the mind of a woman who is clearly suffering from postpartum depression and psychosis, and Madeleine's sense of helplessness and the cloying claustrophobia she feels is quite visceral, forcing the reader, at times, to share in the spiralling anxiety that Madeleine suffers. The detached nature of her struggle is highlighted by the visible concern shown by her boyfriend Tom, and her parents, who don't quite know how to handle the situation. While I wasn't always enamoured with the development of the plot, the pacing kept me reading and I finished this quicker than I expected. Madeleine, as a character, is well-developed and fleshed out but is not always likeable, which perhaps makes her all the more human, while secondary characters at first feel superficial and sometimes one-dimensional, they develop personality in parallel to Madeleine's descent into madness.
Although I did enjoy this debut and I am eager to see what McBride produces next, I can only reluctantly give this 3.5 stars as I found some sections at the beginning, and towards the end, somewhat overwrought. There are also many references to Victorian literature sprinkled throughout the text which makes sense considering Madeleine is a literary studies graduate, but I couldn't help but feel that now and then I was being somehow passive aggressively berated on my lack of knowledge of classic English verse. There are some references I was certainly familiar with thanks to the English curriculum in Ireland where we had to study a lot of Yeats, and Shakespeare, so I recognised a number of Yeats' poems and also the reference to Queen Mab which I recalled from Romeo and Juliet, but there are some more obscure references that might not appeal to some readers.
Despite some misgivings, I would still recommend this to readers as an intelligent and revealing exploration of postpartum mental health and how this manifested itself in Madeleine's fascination with folklore and fairies.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
In this book we follow 23 year old academic and soon to be mother Madeleine through her pregnancy, birth and the months after. Despite experiencing a difficult birth and having had C-section, Madeleine still falls in love with her baby Maud. But after being separated from her for a few days because of medical issues, she suddenly doesn’t recognize Maud anymore. All she can see is a mean baby with cunning eyes, always hungry and never satisfied. All her love vanished and she is sure that her little baby has been replaced by a fairy child, a changeling. We follow Madeleine as she dives deeper and deeper into her theories, totally alienated and isolated in her fear. Soon enough, the reader recognizes typical signs of psychosis in Madeleine, and we follow her as the state of her mind escalates. Madeleine’s obsession changes from trying to change the fairy child back to realizing that not her baby, but she herself has been changed by the fairies. As this realization hits her, she follows a new plan, which finally lands her in a closed mother and child ward, where her illness is being treated.
Queen Man is the debut novel of Emily McBride and spiked with literary references. The atmosphere is extremely eerie as we share Madeleine’s deepest fears and her point of view while also realizing more and more that she slowly but surely slides into a full psychosis. Despite not having had the experience myself, I think that the author accurately captures the feeling of complete alienation and paranoia as well as the feelings of postpartum depression. The struggles of a new mother with little guidance, in a precarious situation and with no help or support, are depicted in a very realistic way in this novel. Madeleine’s fairy world is beautifully displayed through yet again literary references and mostly elements of nature, primarily a cat and a fox, which embody the fairies that took away Maud or Madeleine.
I would read this book over and over again!
In this book we follow 23 year old academic and soon to be mother Madeleine through her pregnancy, birth and the months after. Despite experiencing a difficult birth and having had C-section, Madeleine still falls in love with her baby Maud. But after being separated from her for a few days because of medical issues, she suddenly doesn’t recognize Maud anymore. All she can see is a mean baby with cunning eyes, always hungry and never satisfied. All her love vanished and she is sure that her little baby has been replaced by a fairy child, a changeling. We follow Madeleine as she dives deeper and deeper into her theories, totally alienated and isolated in her fear. Soon enough, the reader recognizes typical signs of psychosis in Madeleine, and we follow her as the state of her mind escalates. Madeleine’s obsession changes from trying to change the fairy child back to realizing that not her baby, but she herself has been changed by the fairies. As this realization hits her, she follows a new plan, which finally lands her in a closed mother and child ward, where her illness is being treated.
Queen Man is the debut novel of Emily McBride and spiked with literary references. The atmosphere is extremely eerie as we share Madeleine’s deepest fears and her point of view while also realizing more and more that she slowly but surely slides into a full psychosis. Despite not having had the experience myself, I think that the author accurately captures the feeling of complete alienation and paranoia as well as the feelings of postpartum depression. The struggles of a new mother with little guidance, in a precarious situation and with no help or support, are depicted in a very realistic way in this novel. Madeleine’s fairy world is beautifully displayed through yet again literary references and mostly elements of nature, primarily a cat and a fox, which embody the fairies that took away Maud or Madeleine.
I would read this book over and over again!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
“They all wore a look of stricken recognition, and they stood around her like lock keepers, holding back the water.”
I went into this loving the idea of Madeline as a literature scholar who always has a quote for everything, chapters starting with snippets of Yeats and Keats. Throw in faeries and changelings and you can sign me up.
But rather than magical realism and a story of babies and faeries switched at birth, this was a raw and heart wrenching exploration of post-natal depression. I’m not a mother myself, but have plenty of friends who are and what struck me most about Queen Mab was how long it took anybody to truly help Madeline and recognise what was happening. My heart was literally clenching as Tom got angry and her “friends” did nothing more than look at her strangely. I think the way this was done, with its lyrical prose and Madeline’s “madness” manifesting in faeries and Greymalkin the talking cat was beautifully metaphorical.
I think the theme of identity was really important here too. After the “Great Undiscovery“ Madeline felt disconnected from her mother and father, particularly when her father’s latest hobby became genealogy. But the fact that he finds out that her adoptive great-grandmother went through something so similar after her second baby was born brought them touchingly back together again - blood doesn’t make family and post natal depression touches far more people than we realise.
Queen Mab was far from what I expected, but I think it will stay with me for a very long time.
I went into this loving the idea of Madeline as a literature scholar who always has a quote for everything, chapters starting with snippets of Yeats and Keats. Throw in faeries and changelings and you can sign me up.
But rather than magical realism and a story of babies and faeries switched at birth, this was a raw and heart wrenching exploration of post-natal depression. I’m not a mother myself, but have plenty of friends who are and what struck me most about Queen Mab was how long it took anybody to truly help Madeline and recognise what was happening. My heart was literally clenching as Tom got angry and her “friends” did nothing more than look at her strangely. I think the way this was done, with its lyrical prose and Madeline’s “madness” manifesting in faeries and Greymalkin the talking cat was beautifully metaphorical.
I think the theme of identity was really important here too. After the “Great Undiscovery“ Madeline felt disconnected from her mother and father, particularly when her father’s latest hobby became genealogy. But the fact that he finds out that her adoptive great-grandmother went through something so similar after her second baby was born brought them touchingly back together again - blood doesn’t make family and post natal depression touches far more people than we realise.
Queen Mab was far from what I expected, but I think it will stay with me for a very long time.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
4.4/5 stars -- (if i had a nickel for every beautifully written lit fic book i read this year that would scare a woman off of having a baby, i would have two nickels. which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it's happened twice.) HOLY SMOKES what a stunningly beautiful debut. i left my copy with 108 highlights and some of them were big ole swaths of text, because it was truly that hard to cut the quotes off. what started off as a young woman's journey into motherhood take a quick swan dive into madness, and queen mab truly had me right there in the trenches with maddie, questioning my own sanity and trying to make meaning of the signs she was seeing. i loved the many literary allusions (those i caught, and the many i got to learn about!), and having the academic angle to the faerie lore was a beautifully original twist to the changeling myth. overall, i highly recommend queen mab and i look forward to picking up more emily mcbride in the future someday!
Plot: 4/5
Characters: 5/5
Pacing: 4/5
Writing: 5/5
Enjoyment: 4/5
thank you to netgalley and farrar, straus and giroux for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review!
Plot: 4/5
Characters: 5/5
Pacing: 4/5
Writing: 5/5
Enjoyment: 4/5
thank you to netgalley and farrar, straus and giroux for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review!
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
This is story about motherhood and the impact of postpartum depression told through a young academic struggling for understanding of the possibilities her daughter is a changeling.
Madeleine “Maddie” Brodeur is a raising academic who answers to the name Mads, Queen Mab or Queenie. When she becomes pregnant, she is watched during pregnancy, has a horrific labor followed by an unscheduled C-Section before her daughter, Maud, is born. At first Maddie delights in her daughter but soon she believes something is wrong as she becomes obsessed with the belief her daughter is a changing.
The book is an exploration of madness and imagination. Maddie’s postpartum depression- something I never experienced - is filled with fairy tale illusions and literary quotations (don’t miss the Source section at the end, it’s impressive). I really felt sorry for Maddie - what an awful postpartum experience! And her husband, Tom, was a douche (what every woman doesn’t need at any time). The use of fairy tales and literary quotes as part of the premise of the book was interesting. But I also felt the craziness associated with postpartum in the fairy tale trope being offered was overstated and a bit too much.
My thanks to NetGalley and Farrer, Straus, and Giroux for allowing me access to this ARC.
Madeleine “Maddie” Brodeur is a raising academic who answers to the name Mads, Queen Mab or Queenie. When she becomes pregnant, she is watched during pregnancy, has a horrific labor followed by an unscheduled C-Section before her daughter, Maud, is born. At first Maddie delights in her daughter but soon she believes something is wrong as she becomes obsessed with the belief her daughter is a changing.
The book is an exploration of madness and imagination. Maddie’s postpartum depression- something I never experienced - is filled with fairy tale illusions and literary quotations (don’t miss the Source section at the end, it’s impressive). I really felt sorry for Maddie - what an awful postpartum experience! And her husband, Tom, was a douche (what every woman doesn’t need at any time). The use of fairy tales and literary quotes as part of the premise of the book was interesting. But I also felt the craziness associated with postpartum in the fairy tale trope being offered was overstated and a bit too much.
My thanks to NetGalley and Farrer, Straus, and Giroux for allowing me access to this ARC.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
I found this book progressively breathtaking. I personally find it hard to read continuous stream of consciousness when there isn’t anything physically happening in the time line (such as pages of someone’s inner monologue and in the storyline, no time has passed so you’ve just invested this time reading, only to be in the same spot with no change in the plot line.) BUT I loved this.
Initially I felt that this book was a great representation of PPD but then as the story continued and psychosis and everything else came into play, I still felt like it was helpful to see such representation despite the extremes that Madeleine was going through. It gave such a serious insight to the changes that people go through when becoming parents and certainly opened my eyes.
The writing was just so thorough. The concept was reasonably simple but the execution was unbelievable. The sheer amount of research that would’ve gone into this work, referencing works upon works of stories, poetry, history - I am in awe. The effort is immense and you can feel it from the first few pages that this is going to be a thoughtful and considered piece of work. As the story progresses, I am continuously impressed.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
A descent-into-madness novel that feels like reading a Victorian text, but with a modern twist.
I’ve read many novels lately about motherhood and madness, but none have been as strong or compelling as this one. Without giving too much away, the postpartum psychosis captured in this book is so real and gritty and raw, that, as a reader, you have no choice but to go along for the ride. You’re inside Madeleine’s head, you’re inside her thoughts (despite the psychosis section switching to third person), and her reality is your reality. Her world makes sense. Until, all of a sudden, things get fragmented, and other dark moments from her family’s past come to light.
Beautifully written, ladened with literature references from Brontë to Yeats to Woolf, this is a powerful debut. Like most good books, it’s about many things: motherhood and madness, sure, but also family lineage. Family stories. Love - chosen or not. Belonging. Gentrification. The wilderness, the wild, the animal in all of us. Fables.
Ultimately, Queen Mab is, in part, about trying to make sense of that which doesn't make sense. And doing so through what we know best: stories. In Madeleine’s case: stories of fairies.
I’ve read many novels lately about motherhood and madness, but none have been as strong or compelling as this one. Without giving too much away, the postpartum psychosis captured in this book is so real and gritty and raw, that, as a reader, you have no choice but to go along for the ride. You’re inside Madeleine’s head, you’re inside her thoughts (despite the psychosis section switching to third person), and her reality is your reality. Her world makes sense. Until, all of a sudden, things get fragmented, and other dark moments from her family’s past come to light.
Beautifully written, ladened with literature references from Brontë to Yeats to Woolf, this is a powerful debut. Like most good books, it’s about many things: motherhood and madness, sure, but also family lineage. Family stories. Love - chosen or not. Belonging. Gentrification. The wilderness, the wild, the animal in all of us. Fables.
Ultimately, Queen Mab is, in part, about trying to make sense of that which doesn't make sense. And doing so through what we know best: stories. In Madeleine’s case: stories of fairies.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I was really captured by the premise of this book and the writing was beautiful. But I was quickly lost by the large number of Victorian literary references. The secondhand anxiety that this novel caused is both a pro and a con. While the author did a wonderful job of illustrating the FMC's fall into further psychosis, it was physically palpable for me which almost had me abandoning the novel. So while I did not *love* it, I liked it enough to stick around to see how the story ended.
While this not a horror novel by any means, I feel that readers that enjoy novels that toe the line of psychological horror would enjoy this.
Thank you to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the Digital ARC of this novel.
While this not a horror novel by any means, I feel that readers that enjoy novels that toe the line of psychological horror would enjoy this.
Thank you to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the Digital ARC of this novel.
June 25, 2026
Thank you to NetGalley and Pushkin Press for providing me with an ARC of this book. All opinions are my own.
I was absolutely transfixed by this novel. Incredibly well written and deeply haunting, “Queen Mab” details a young mother coming to believe that her newborn has been taken and replaced with a changeling.
The strong literary and fairy tale themes in the book were a delight to read, and the description of Madeline’s interior world was so rich and fraught and captivating. I found myself eager to return to the book when I was forced to put it down.
I highly recommend this book to all readers, but especially those who enjoy books about womanhood, motherhood, and references to classic literature. A true gem of a book.
I was absolutely transfixed by this novel. Incredibly well written and deeply haunting, “Queen Mab” details a young mother coming to believe that her newborn has been taken and replaced with a changeling.
The strong literary and fairy tale themes in the book were a delight to read, and the description of Madeline’s interior world was so rich and fraught and captivating. I found myself eager to return to the book when I was forced to put it down.
I highly recommend this book to all readers, but especially those who enjoy books about womanhood, motherhood, and references to classic literature. A true gem of a book.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
This is a debut novel. It follows a new mother dealing with fear and exhaustion, and the feeling that something isn’t right. The mix of folklore and her unraveling felt intimate and heavy, but it worked for me. It’s slow and atmospheric, and it stayed with me after I finished. I really enjoyed it, it was something new for me and offered meaningful lessons and awareness.
Thank you Netgalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the ARC
Thank you Netgalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the ARC
Review of advance copy received from Edelweiss+
This is literary fiction at its most metatextual, with references to Victorian fictions and intertextualities that wrap around the characters in ways that will appeal to fans of Helen Oyeyemi, just a bit heavier handed than some of the best books in this space (like anything by A.S. Byatt).
Review of advance copy
Absolutely beautiful and captivating. McBride brings you into the world of Madeleine- whether her physical surroundings or her mental unravelings- with a subtle and deft touch. Through the story of new motherhood, she leads us to universal questions of belonging and the slipperiness of reality’s borders. I couldn’t wait to return to this book each evening and was dreaming about it at night.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Hell of a debut that looks at a young academic's experience of pregnancy and new motherhood, including post partum psychosis, changeling lore and mythos, and woman trying to keep it together as her world increasingly falls apart. Genuinely surprised a take on post partum psychosis and changelings hadn't been done yet.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
mcbride does a wonderful job of fully immersing the reader in madeleine’s spiral of psychosis. readers will be uncomfy the whole time.
anyway this book took forever for me to read because of the sheer number of run-ons. i get what it was emulating, but it was still painful to read.
thank you to netgalley and farrar, straus, and giroux for an earc in exchange for my honest review.
anyway this book took forever for me to read because of the sheer number of run-ons. i get what it was emulating, but it was still painful to read.
thank you to netgalley and farrar, straus, and giroux for an earc in exchange for my honest review.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Thank you to NetGalley and publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux for a digital ARC.
“…call it madness, call it a metaphor, but that did not make it untrue.”
WOW! This book was incredible. Emily McBride’s debut novel entrances you with glimmers of faerie peeking through everyday life in Splinters (St. John’s Wood, London). The story follows Madeleine Brodeur, an English PhD student studying the nonhuman in modernist literature, as she grapples with becoming a mother with her husband, Tom, and the onset of postpartum psychosis dealing with changelings.
This book explored many themes, from the nature of reality, to the metamorphosis of motherhood, to questioning what connects us to our family. Queen Mab masterfully blends psychosis with feminist commentary on what it means to be a mother.
I loved the prose and sprinklings of quotes from modernist poetry and literature throughout the book. The atmosphere was wonderful, the mixing of reality and faerie perfectly executed, complete with rising anxieties and detachment from stability.
“…call it madness, call it a metaphor, but that did not make it untrue.”
WOW! This book was incredible. Emily McBride’s debut novel entrances you with glimmers of faerie peeking through everyday life in Splinters (St. John’s Wood, London). The story follows Madeleine Brodeur, an English PhD student studying the nonhuman in modernist literature, as she grapples with becoming a mother with her husband, Tom, and the onset of postpartum psychosis dealing with changelings.
This book explored many themes, from the nature of reality, to the metamorphosis of motherhood, to questioning what connects us to our family. Queen Mab masterfully blends psychosis with feminist commentary on what it means to be a mother.
I loved the prose and sprinklings of quotes from modernist poetry and literature throughout the book. The atmosphere was wonderful, the mixing of reality and faerie perfectly executed, complete with rising anxieties and detachment from stability.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
With thanks to NetGalley for the digital ARC.
The best debut novel I've read in some time: a literary, deeply allusive story of a young mother and PhD student who is struggling with intense postpartum anxiety as she also confronts her own complex history as a much-loved adopted child.
Madeleine is a young-ish mother, especially for an academic, and she worries that having a child will make her seem less ambitious. Despite her extensive preparation, her birth experience is traumatic, and once she's home with her new daughter, she feels abandoned when her husband quickly heads back to work while cautioning her not to waste their limited budget. Isolated and increasingly anxious, Madeleine struggles to feel connected to her child and recollects her own experience of adoption and her ties to her loving (but also anxious) parents.
This description, though, doesn't convey the full flavour of this lyrical and often darkly comic work. It's a very literary novel: the protagonist-narrator thinks in literary references. But Madeleine's anxieties about her baby, Maud, become more obsessive: she begins to wonder if there's a reason that she doesn't feel intimately entwined with the baby, and that prompts her thinking about changelings.
A beautifully written and accomplished first novel that will probably appeal most to readers who appreciate the vast array of literary allusions.
The best debut novel I've read in some time: a literary, deeply allusive story of a young mother and PhD student who is struggling with intense postpartum anxiety as she also confronts her own complex history as a much-loved adopted child.
Madeleine is a young-ish mother, especially for an academic, and she worries that having a child will make her seem less ambitious. Despite her extensive preparation, her birth experience is traumatic, and once she's home with her new daughter, she feels abandoned when her husband quickly heads back to work while cautioning her not to waste their limited budget. Isolated and increasingly anxious, Madeleine struggles to feel connected to her child and recollects her own experience of adoption and her ties to her loving (but also anxious) parents.
This description, though, doesn't convey the full flavour of this lyrical and often darkly comic work. It's a very literary novel: the protagonist-narrator thinks in literary references. But Madeleine's anxieties about her baby, Maud, become more obsessive: she begins to wonder if there's a reason that she doesn't feel intimately entwined with the baby, and that prompts her thinking about changelings.
A beautifully written and accomplished first novel that will probably appeal most to readers who appreciate the vast array of literary allusions.
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