I wanted to love this one and I just didn't . I understood what this book was trying to saying and I could relate to it a mother. The pace and writing kept me from getting fully lost in the story. I was just frustrated reading this book the whole time.

“She could already imagine the therapy sessions twenty, thirty years from now: My mother starved me because she thought I was eating her soul.”

💭Thoughts:
This book had so much promise. It had all the makings for a creepy, keep you up at night thriller. I loved the premise and was immediately sucked into the story, but I found myself bored about halfway through. I really felt for Olivia and what she was going through. Being a new mom is very difficult, especially with postpartum depression and a lack of strong support at home. And to be honest, I felt at times like the author was mocking PPA & PPD sufferers. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it made me feel icky.

After finishing the book, the ending fell flat for me. I can see what the author was trying to do, but the execution just didn’t really work for me.

Lastly, the title was a strange choice. A bit misleading and disturbing in a way that had nothing to do with the story. It just offers a little shock value.

Graveyard of Lost Children is much scarier than anything I would usually choose to read, but by the time it got to the truly horrifying parts, I was hooked and couldn’t look away.

I flip-flopped on who was the actual crazy person here soooo many times. At some point, I was convinced every single person in this book was either perfectly sane and a victim of haunting or manipulation or was the perpetrator of said manipulation while being completely insane. This is a perfect storm of mental illness, genetics, lack of sleep, hormones, postpartum depression, and unexplainable paranormal activity.

Monroe kept a pretty tight ship for most of the book, but the edges started to fray and give the game away about three-quarters of the way through. After that, things started to move too quickly, and a few big giveaways could have been avoided to keep the mystery alive and the intensity high.

This is the second ARC I’ve read by Monroe, and while They Drown Our Daughters was interesting, Graveyard of Lost Children stepped up to another level entirely. So many believable moments ground the narrative and make the horrific moments that much more terrifying. And the way these terrible moments happen in an instant, over almost as soon as they started, makes it way too easy to second guess and try to find ways to explain them away.

I thoroughly enjoyed Graveyard of Lost Children, even if it is likely to haunt my nightmares and make me see things in mirrors and dark windows for the foreseeable future… I probably would not recommend this one to pregnant readers or those with newborns. The only thing saving me from an actual mental breakdown is that I haven’t had children and feel ‘safe’ from the consequences described here.

AHHHHHH! This one was so witty and fun, and I'm so thankful to Katrina Monroe, NetGalley, and Poisoned Pen Press for granting me a finished copy and digital ARC access before this baby hit shelves on May 9, 2023.

3.5. I did enjoy this book. I'm sure many women feel this way after giving birth and this was a very unique approach to the conversation of post partum depression. I have been unable to have a child myself, but I still enjoyed the book.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author, for an ARC of this book, in exchange for an honest review.
"Graveyard of Lost Children"
by Katrina Monroe was a beautifully written story that was eerie, dark, disturbing & addictive.
I would definitely read another book by Ms. Monroe.

This book was interesting, disturbing, and weird.
I like all of the above. The style of writing wasn’t my thing though but the story was good

Thank you to the publisher and netgallery for letting me read this copy.

Motherhood is difficult no matter what. But having the kind of family background Olivia deals with surely doesn't make it easier. Gazing at her own child, she can't help but wonder what brought her own mother to do the things she did. And what if she is the same? What if her child is not, actually, her child? Graveyard of Lost Children is a fascinating and thrilling read which dives deep into thorny motherhood. Thanks to Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I'm about to hit 30 and as such, motherhood has been on my mind in an interesting way. I'm far from having children, in the sense that I don't have a partner or a plan to stay where I am now for more than a few years. I also don't know if I want children. But as a woman, or for me as a woman, it is nonetheless something that's on my mind. How would I feel, as a mother? Would I still be me or would I become someone new, something different? What parts of me would I recognise in a child of my own? What family legacy would I pass on? What trauma? Would I be strong enough to raise a child, despite the anxiety that already runs through my everyday life? I don't think these are weird questions and I also don't think these questions have "correct" answers. I think parenthood is an insane, intense experience that is a major turning point in a life, no matter where you are in your life the moment it takes place. Since these thoughts are on my mind, however, I am finding myself more and more drawn to novels that explore motherhood, specifically the less-shiny, less-Instagramable aspects of it. The Harpy by Megan Hunter and Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder were two of those books. Graveyard of Lost Children is another, which allowed me to engage with these questions while also giving me a strong dose of thrills and suspense.

Olivia has just given birth to her daughter Flora and she and her wife, Kris, are delighted. But Olivia is also exhausted and on the edge of something. Is she doing this right? Is she failing at being a mother? Why are so many aspects of motherhood so painful to her? Olivia hardly had a great role-model, as her own mother, Shannon, almost killed her due to her belief Olivia had been swapped by a black-haired woman down a well. So Olivia struggles on, and on, until the struggles seem to overwhelm her and there only seems to be one person who might understand what has gone wrong with her. Or rather, what has gone wrong with her daughter. Graveyard of Lost Children switches between Olivia's story and that of her mother, Shannon. While Olivia's is told by a third-person narrator progresses chronologically in "real time", Shannon's narrative comes to us through her diary-entries, written in the first-person, which tells us both of her incarceration in a mental asylum and about her youth. As tension builds inside Olivia, so Shannon's narrative comes ever closer to revealing what made her almost kill Olivia. As their stories intertwine, the plot becomes a little busy, reveal following reveal , which ratchets up the suspense but abandons some of the steady and stark tension which had built up. I was incredibly intrigued by Olivia's journey, how her self-doubt and anxiety overtakes her sense of reality. There is a lot of humanity in her portrayal which threatened to get lost in the end. Something I very much appreciated, however, was how Monroe didn't shy away from the grim realities of motherhood, both in Olivia's 21st-century experience, and that of her mother years earlier. As an unwed teen mom in a big family, Shannon's experience of motherhood was rough from the get go and while Monroe doesn't excuse, she does explain.

Saying I enjoyed this novel almost feels wrong, due to its rough topic, but I can't deny I was gripped by it. Katrina Monroe's writing really riveted me, from the visceral descriptions of the physical changes Olivia goes through, to Monroe's affecting descriptions of Olivia's mental turmoil. The switch in narration also worked well and the way Monroe played with the growing tension that builds between the information coming from both Olivia and Shannon was also intriguing. The tone of Graveyard of Lost Children wavers between gritty thriller, supernatural suspense, and mental health novel. I enjoy all three of these genres but sometimes found myself wishing Monroe would land more heavily in one of them, solidifying the approach of her novel. I think, however, that in part the wavering, the lack of assurance, the inability to entirely figure out what is up, is the point of Graveyard. Becoming a parent so drastically affects your sense of self, it seems, that a new reality needs to be established in which your priorities are vastly different. The black-haired woman hovers over the narrative, at once utterly real and yet also a metaphor. As the novel works itself towards an end, it comes closer to having to choose between these two. Some elements of the ending didn't really work for me, but the final brief chapter utterly pulled me in again. The final chapter was the kind of ending I had hoped for and which fit the novel overall in its painful but important discussion of motherhood. I will definitely be reading more books by Katrina Monroe!

Graveyard of Lost Children is a searing novel about motherhood, family, and inherited trauma. It questions the kind of support mothers receive, about where the line lies between keeping a child safe and keeping them locked up, and whether we can ever be entirely good enough.

This book was creepy and dark and incredibly difficult to determine what was reality and what was potentially mental illness. Initially, it's easy to dismiss the events as those of possible post partum depression or some other mental stressor. However, the further I delved into the book, the more I believed that there might actually be something supernatural at play. By the end, I wasn't necessarily sure either way but it didn't matter because this book had kept me engaged the entire way through.

As a somewhat heartbreaking read about women who believe their children have been swapped out and replaced with changelings, this book really dove deep into how this would impact not just the mother but each and every person around her. It was well-written and clever.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC. I voluntarily chose to read and review it and the opinions contained within are my own.

This book was a compelling read for the most part. It is a split narrative between Olivia (3rd person) and her mother’s (Shannon) journal (1st person). Both women encounter a mysterious woman with black hair who berates and abuses them and seeks to replace their children with monstrous changelings. Shannon is institutionalized after her encounter, which threatened Olivia’s life. Olivia faces postpartum depression, fear of hereditary mental illness, and survivor’s trauma on top of her supernatural encounters. Monroe uses the horror genre effectively to explore these fears.

Unfortunately, like many other works of horror fiction that combine mental illness and the supernatural, the balance feels off. At the beginning of the novel the supernatural vs. mental illness make both interpretations seem plausible, but by the end it seems clear it’s all mental illness. Since the novel contends all mothers deal with the specter, that ends up almost stigmatizing motherhood and mental illness. I also felt that the struggles of queer mothers was not discussed as much as was perhaps appropriate, given Olivia and her partner’s status.

Overall, I think it’s a good book, and I still think many will enjoy it despite my critiques above.

You know when you finish a book, and it dawns on you that you've just had the privilege of experiencing absolute genius? Or when a book makes you remember all over again why you love a specific genre? Monroe did all of that and more with this true gem of horror and literature.

This novel in particular was personally horrifying to me. I am terrified of the very concept of motherhood, and I never want to experience it myself, as just the thought of being pregnant or having to raise a child sends a shiver down my spine. So this book was essentially my biggest fears staring back at me through the pages. And usually I would think that this kind of story is so far removed from my existence that it wouldn't actually affect me that much. However, having a queer woman take on that bone chilling role of motherhood and seeing from the beginning how terrified she was of being a mother, made her extremely relatable to me and I found it impossible to remove myself from the narrative. I felt so deeply connected to her and it made the entire reading experience so incredibly potent.

Of course, as I do with every horror novel, I read this in the pitch darkness of my bedroom, with nothing but one creepy candle by my bedside and my chilling horror album to keep my company. And I have genuinely been haunted for the past couple of weeks. I see the monster from this story in the corner of my eye and in every dark shadowy space. My brain makes up jump scares that take me by surprise on random brightly lit weekday afternoons. For most I would assume that this would not be a positive thing, but I have had such a fun and exciting experience with this. And the only reason it took me so long to get through it is that it was quite emotionally draining, and I needed to take my time to understand the depth of every message Monroe communicates to the reader.

Monroe also makes a genius literary choice by having Olivia's chapters, the young mother, be written in third person POV and Shannon's, the older mother, in first person POV. It so completely skewed with your perception of who was losing their sanity, who could be trusted, who was lying, and who was seeing the truth. It was so effective and it was only when I was discussing the book with a friend that I even realized that there was a POV switch, and just how incredible of a move it was.

The whole book is an amazing allegory for the complexities of motherhood: the way others treat you, the way you start to treat yourself, the doubt, the fear, the unwavering and unconditional love you have for your child and how that very love is the most terrifying thing a human can experience. I really do not have a better word for this novel other than simply genius.

I cannot recommend it enough and I will be thinking about this book, probably forever. It's going straight to the top of my horror recommendation list and I will scream about it until I have run out of breath.

This was a creepy, yet fascinating novel that took all the mom-guilt, shame, anxiety, stress, sleep deprivation of becoming a mother and raising a child and created a manipulative and horrifying entity. It is dark reflection on the standards/pressures put on new mothers vs. new fathers. Those questions that most, if not all mothers ask themselves at least once, "Am I doing this wrong? Am I a bad mother?". The idea of knowing our children, deep in our bones. The festering of inadequacy, of sacrifice vs. selfishness. It made me open my eyes and read more but at the same time, close my eyes and hide from the outside world. Definitely a must read!

Thank you NetGalley, Poisoned Pen Press, and Katrina Monroe for the advanced copy of Graveyard of Lost Children in exchange for my honest review.

The writing style in this book is definitely one I gravitated to as it kept me interested the entire time I was reading. I was hoping for a big "oh dang!" twist at the end but don't feel I ever really got one.

Also as someone who is currently pregnant this made me terrified of postpartum psychosis, rare as it may be. So proceed with caution fellow pregnant folks!

I will definitely not hesitate to read this author again in the future.

Thanks to NetGalley for an advanced copy. I felt like this book started off good and but about the half way point I got bored with. Overall the book wAs just the middle of the road for me.

The Graveyard of Lost Children, by Katrina Monroe is a story about motherhood, it's joys, but in this novel, its hardships namely; postpartum depression. If you are a fan of horror and motherhood, then this will be the perfect book for you.

Monroe has laid out an interesting format for her book, alternating between stories; a dual narration. Shannon's story unfolds as we see her grow up in an unstable home, become a teen mother, and ultimately we witness her spiral into madness and postpartum depression, with the final transgression of attempting to kill her child at four months old. Alternately, the other narrative is said baby as a grown women. Olivia, married to Kris, having just given birth to their own child Flora. What ties these narratives together? A black haired women who they believe is and was trying to kill their babies.

This books is a quick, and entertaining read, albeit a bit disturbing, We bare witness to the demise of a mothers mental state, which can be hard to read. I often called into question whether she was sane, or in fact there was a woman out to get both mother and daughter. What I did find to be factual ( in my own opinion and experience) was the days after having a child. Monroe captures the true essence of motherhood and the effects of sleep deprivation, questioning your effectiveness at being a mother, the utter lack of experience, not having any idea if what you were doing was right. New motherhood is a confusing time. It is not what the fairytales of our youth have shown us. She captured this time brilliantly.

If your looking for a book that will give you the creeps, keep you guessing and looking out your window at every noise you hear, then this is a book you will want to pick up.

Thank you, NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

I genuinely believed that Graveyard of Lost Children was simply a creepy horror novel but it turned out to be so much more than that. Symbolic of life after childbirth, it touches on the dark side of motherhood. Olivia just gave birth to her healthy baby girl, Flora but when her daughter slowly changes into someone Olivia does not recognize it becomes clear that Olivia has to delve into her scary past. As it turns out her mother was committed when she tried to kill Olivia when she was younger. Trying to save her child and herself while her life starts to fall apart, Olivia discovers the truth. There were a couple of unnecessary supporting characters but they didn't bother me much. I thought I was going to be able to figure this one out but until the big reveal it really didn't hit me.

TW: murder, post partum, dysfunctional family

Huh, I am sitting here having a hard time trying to articulate my thoughts about this wonderfully done horror book.

Spoilers ahead



In here we have Olivia, whose mother tried to kill her. She survived and mom went into a mental health facility. She is also an extremely unreliable narrator.

She grows up and gets married and has a child. She then starts having a mental break exactly like her mother before her and thinks her child is not her child and until near the end, thought her mother was going to help her get the real baby back.

Come to find out, that was not what mommy dearest wanted. Mommy dearest wants her real baby back as she does not believe this Olivia is her child.

I am going to be honest, I am not sure any of this was really paranormal. It could all be related to the mental health issues of this whole family. But that does not explain the other women involved.

Egads, I hate not having a for sure answer to what happened. Regardless, this was a wonderfully written story and I enjoyed it immensely. It could have been edited down a bit, but outside of that, it was good.

Graveyard of lost children was an amazing fast paced read with lost of twist. I was up all night reading this one i will definitely be recommending this one to anyone that will listen. I cant wait to see what els Katrina come out with in the feature!

I couldn’t get into this book. I debated DNFing it three times before I finally gave up. There was definitely some fluff that could’ve been cut out to get the plot moving. However, what really caused me to dislike this book was that I couldn’t tell whether the author was trying to raise awareness for PPD/PPA or mock it.

As someone that suffered from PPA and didn’t realize it and brushed it off as regular first mom jitters, this book didn’t sit well with me while reading. There are definitely better ways to bring awareness to postpartum mental health issues.

Thanks to Netgalley and Poisoned Pen Press for another amazing ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I’ll be honest, at first I struggled to get into this novel and maybe purely because I couldn’t relate to Olivia and her experience of being a new mum. However, Monroe’s incredible writing draws you into the story as you see Olivia begin to unravel post the birth of her new baby girl.

This novel was really interesting as it explored the idea of postpartum depression and turned it into a thriller.

Olivia following the birth of her daughter doesn’t feel the new mum “glow” and is overwhelmed as she tries to feed her ever hungry baby girl. Just as her mother did when Olivia was a baby, Olivia begins to hear the whisper and see the black haired woman. Olivia begins to question what is real and what isn’t as she begins to worry that her baby girl has been swapped for a changeling.