Content levels
Trigger warnings
Positive tags
Hero archetypes
Heroine archetypes
Protagonist archetypes
Tropes
Synopsis
This genre-bending Africanfuturist horror novel blends The Handmaid’s Tale with Get Out in an adrenaline-packed, cyberpunk body-hopping ghost story exploring motherhood, memory, and a woman’s right to her own body. Nelah seems to have it all: fame, wealth, and a long-awaited daughter growing in a government lab. But, trapped in a loveless marriage to a policeman who uses a microchip to monitor her every move, Nelah’s perfect life is precarious. After a drug-fueled evening culminates in an eerie car accident, Nelah commits a desperate crime and buries the body, daring to hope that she can keep one last secret. The truth claws its way into Nelah’s life from the grave. As the ghost of her victim viciously hunts down the people Nelah holds dear, she is thrust into a race against the clock: in order to save any of her remaining loved ones, Nelah must unravel the political conspiracy her victim was on the verge of exposing—or risk losing everyone. Set in a cruel futuristic surveillance state where bodies are a government-issued resource, this harrowing story is a twisty, nail-biting commentary on power, monstrosity, and bodily autonomy. In sickeningly evocative prose, Womb City interrogates how patriarchy pits women against each other as unwitting collaborators in their own oppression. In this devastatingly timely debut novel, acclaimed short fiction writer Tlotlo Tsamaase brings a searing intelligence and Botswana’s cultural sensibility to the question: just how far must a woman go to bring the whole system crashing down?
Tags
Womb City: content & age rating
Intended for adult readers (18+).
This dark, intense novel contains graphic violence, a murder and body disposal, supernatural horror elements, drug use, domestic surveillance and control, and themes of government-enforced bodily violation. The oppressive surveillance state and body horror imagery make this unsuitable for teens.
What to know going in
This book has strong violence, moderate sexual content, and strong language. Content notes include domestic violence, murder, death, and grief (see the full list above).
Who'll love this
Adult readers will be captivated by this gripping ghost story that blends cyberpunk tech with African futurism and explores what one woman will do to protect her loved ones.