The Mother Before Me

A packet of hidden letters inside a dead novelist's manuscript whispers of a stolen baby, a decades-old lie, and a murder disguised as natural causes. Claire Brookstead, a grief-stricken archivist recovering from miscarriage, arrives at a remote Scottish Highland estate to catalogue a private library—only to uncover a conspiracy of forced adoptions, falsified deaths, and silenced mothers. With the estate sale looming and the only bridge washed out by storm, Claire realizes the killer is still in the house, and the truth she's unearthing may be far more personal than she ever imagined.