After striking out on her own as a teen mom, Madi Price is forced to return to her hometown of Brandywine, Virginia, with her seventeen-year-old daughter. With nothing to her name, she scrapes together a living as a palm reader at the local farmers market.
It’s there that she connects with old high school flame Henry McCabe, now a reclusive local fisherman whose infant son, Skyler, went missing five years ago. Everyone in town is sure Skyler is dead, but when Madi reads Henry’s palm, she’s haunted by strange and disturbing visions that suggest otherwise. As she follows the thread of these visions, Madi discovers a terrifying nightmare waiting at the center of the labyrinth—and it’s coming for everyone she holds dear.
I feel like I’m craving almost nothing but horror these days, and I’m not mad about it. I mean, I’m obviously still reading fantasy & sci-fi & Star Wars & crime novels & & & … but for the moment, it’s the horror novels on my shelves that are calling to me the loudest. I don’t always agree with the way books are categorized on Storygraph, but I’m currently sitting at twenty horror novels for 2025 so far & my TBR is literally jam-packed with horror, so I’m excited to see where that number ends up by the end of the year!
I’ve seen a lot of love for Clay McLeod Chapman’s books over the last few years. He’s had a couple of really buzzy releases like WHISPER DOWN THE LANE and GHOST EATERS. But WHAT KIND OF MOTHER is the first of his book I’ve read, and goddamn. This was fucking outstanding & left such a big impression on me.
The book has some mystery elements and a Southern Gothic vibe, before ultimately descending into a visceral, full-blown crab-infested nightmare. I think what stuck with me most from this book, though, is just how raw & emotional it was. The story deals with grief in a way that’s like…physically painful & uncomfortable to read.
Madi Price does palm readings at a farmer’s market & out of the motel room where she stays. Her readings are…maybe just vibes? It’s hard to say whether she has “the gift” or not, but people respond to her & it seems like doing the palm readings is a way for her to feel connected to the community. She has recently returned to her hometown of Brandywine, Virginia and temporarily given up custody of her seventeen-year-old daughter to her ex. Times have been tough for Madi, who was just a teenager herself when she had her daughter, Kendra.
At the farmer’s market one day, Madi bumps into Henry, an old boyfriend of her’s. Five years prior, Henry’s infant son, Skyler, went missing. Most people in town assume Skyler is dead, but Henry holds onto some small hope that his boy may be alive.
That hope grows even brighter when he convinces Madi to read his palm and she sees…something.
The two begin a desperate, nightmarish quest to find Skyler. And at the same time…Madi is not entirely sure she can trust everything Henry says.
WHAT KIND OF MOTHER is so utterly atmospheric & haunting. This is just a swampy, uncomfortable, brutally emotional story & I loved it. It’s fucking gross, too, be forewarned. Chapman really knows how to turn a phrase that gets right under your skin & stays there.
This was a book that just started clicking (this is not a crab reference but it could be) with me from the first chapter. And like I said earlier, I’ve just been reaching for horror novels more often than ever, and with that, comes the excitement of getting to read new-to-me authors. All this to say that WHAT KIND OF MOTHER made an instant Clay McLeod Chapman fan out of me & I’m really looking forward to checking out more of his work!
Massive thanks to Quirk Books for sending this one my way!
Grimdark Dad 
i really really LOVED Wake Up And Open Your Eyes by the same author
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