Bloodfire, Baby : a gothic tale about motherhood, ghosts and heritage

Author: Carson, Eirinie

Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)

Published on 21 May 2026 by Canelo in the United Kingdom.

Sofia is losing her grip.

She planned to be the perfect mother, and nothing like her own, who raised her to fear the end of the world was approaching.

When Sofia’s husband leaves for an extended work trip and she is left with their three-week old daughter, it’s not long before loneliness and anxiety manifest into something else. Sofia descends into paranoia, and sleep-deprived madness.

She is from a long line of women, all the eldest daughter of the eldest daughter. Her bloodline dates back to 1700s colonised Jamaica. Is that where the source of her haunting lies? Who is this shadow that stalks her in the night? And the face that appears beside her own in the mirror?There isn’t anything she wouldn’t do, Sofia realises, to protect her new baby girl from these threats.

Even bloody violence.

A maternal gothic story of the fourth trimester, of heritage and class, of the things our mothers pass along to us, and the types of mothers people set out to be versus the ones they actually become.

‘Bloodfire, Baby arrives kicking and screaming with flames in its hair and lightning in its hands as it heralds a new powerful literary voice being born. Raw, honest, mysterious, and ultimately courageous’ S. A. COSBY‘A haunting, honest work of art… Absolutely beautiful’ NANA KWAME ADJEI-BRENYAH‘A ferocious, hypnotic descent that burrows under your skin and refuses to let go. A fever dream, a psychological thriller, and a whip-smart commentary on modern motherhood’ CHELSEA BIEKER