Shadows of Water

A story about motherhood that is not spoken aloud. About the silence, guilt, and loneliness that can emerge even in the midst of love. This book portrays the invisible fragility of a woman who goes through pregnancy and postpartum within a system that does not ask, does not listen, and does not see. An intense, human, and necessary novel that reveals how emotional fractures can form quietly and change a life forever.
This book tells the intimate and heartbreaking story of Nadège Saint Preux, a migrant woman navigating motherhood in a system that does not see her, does not hear her, and does not hold her. From pregnancy through postpartum, the novel explores emotional silence, invisible fragility, and the loneliness that can grow even amid love, family, and the appearance of normalcy. Through sober and deeply human prose, the story reveals how emotional neglect, structural prejudice, and the idealization of motherhood can become a silent storm.
Nadège is not an absent mother or a woman without love. She is someone struggling to exist in a space where constant strength and automatic gratitude are expected, even when both body and mind are crying out for help.