Psychological Literary Fiction for the Individualist

Winnie Amato has spent her whole life dreaming of a home that would never fall apart. When she and her husband Thomas decide to start a family, she throws herself into preparing for their baby with fierce devotion: tracking her fertile window, cooking nutritious meals from scratch, covering every sharp corner in the house, and building handmade mobiles for the nursery. But from the moment the first pregnancy test reads positive, something old and familiar stirs alongside her joy. She has always called it “the Fear.”

Night after night, Winnie finds herself on the cold bathroom floor, paralyzed by intrusive thoughts so vivid and violent that she begins to doubt whether she can trust herself near the people she loves most. Convinced she should be stronger, she hides her suffering from Thomas, from her doctor, and from anyone who might decide she is too broken to be trusted with a child. When a panic attack finally lands her in the hospital and her carefully hidden world cracks open, Winnie must face a terrifying question: Is she dangerous, or is she simply a woman who has never learned to stop fighting herself?

Nest is a tenderly observed, deeply honest literary novel about the private battles women wage between joy and terror, love and self-doubt, identity and transformation. It is a book for anyone who has ever longed for a home they felt unworthy of, hidden their suffering to protect the people they cherished, or discovered that loving something fiercely enough can become the very thing that saves you.