Pretty Baby

Starred review from June 15, 2015
Kubica follows her acclaimed debut, 2014’s The Good Girl, with a superb psychological thriller. Heidi Wood’s husband, Chris, and 12-year-old daughter, Zoe, are used to her rants about recycling, poverty, and literacy, as well as her endless, depressing stories about the immigrants and refugees she meets through the Chicago nonprofit for which she works. But her family didn’t expect Heidi to invite homeless teen Willow Greer and her infant, Ruby, to live with them. Heidi, whose dreams of a large family ended when she had a hysterectomy to save her life, becomes obsessed with Willow and especially Ruby, even as her marriage frays and she ignores Zoe. Afraid that Willow could be violent, Chris tries to find out her background and whether Ruby is even her baby. A series of flashbacks shift among the points of view of Heidi, Chris, and Willow as this heartbreaking tale about obsession, foster care, and the debilitating effects of unacknowledged grief builds to a stunning conclusion. 10-city author tour. Agent: Rachael Dillon Fried, Greenburger Associates.

September 28, 2015
Kubica’s psychological thriller (the follow-up to 2014’s The Good Girl) focuses on Heidi Woods, a Chicago-based social worker who espies a homeless teenage waif, Willow Geer, on a train platform, clutching a crying baby. What initially seems to be a professional interest rapidly carries over to obsession for Heidi. Much to the dismay of her husband, Chris, and her moody 12-year-old daughter, Zoe, Heidi takes the possibly psychotic Willow and tot into their home. Kubica spins her disturbing tale using three present-tense points of view, performed here by a trio of readers. Heidi is the first to speak. Her voice, thanks to reader Campbell, is somewhat academic when describing the city’s social problems, but quickly shifts to concern for the mother and child. Taylorson’s Chris starts out weary from the travel-heavy rut he’s in and annoyed by Heidi’s new insistence on meatless menus, as well as her ceaselessly downbeat tales of society’s ills. Though Heidi’s and Chris’s chapters include
frequent flashbacks to the past, they follow a linked chronology. Reader Marie voices Willow’s sections, which take place after her stay in the Woods’ household. Sounding vaguely druggy,
or maybe just without affect, she recalls events from her past. But she drops a
few comments suggesting that some
terrible fate has befallen Heidi. But as the novel’s powerful and emotionally devastating ending makes clear, she doesn’t understand what it is. A Mira hardcover.