[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-117715-en":3,"doc-seo-117715-105":29,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":90},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":4,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":11,"is_downloadable":11,"audit_status":11,"page_count":20,"language":21,"language_code":22,"site_id":23,"html_lang":22,"table_of_contents":24,"faqs":25,"seo_title":26,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":27,"read_time":28},117715,13056703020460,"Valentina","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/be000253dac470eee5d?_k=1778207105932848923",1,"Story & Novel","The Quickening - Claire McGowan","The Quickening by Claire McGowan follows Karen’s early-morning routine as she manages persistent pregnancy monitoring anxiety through a health-app alarm system and the pressures of earning daily “health” and “citizen” points for her teenage children. The narrative opens in Chapter One with Karen’s frantic response to a baby-like shriek, a negative fertility test, and her systematic plans for school, dinner, and children’s programs. Personal doubts about lost plans and career trade-offs shape her drive to keep everything running.","Also by Claire McGowan  \nThe Other Couple  \nThe First Girl Truth Truth Lie Let Me In Are You Awake? I Know You The Push  \nThe Other Wife What You Did The Lost  \nThe Dead Ground  \nThe Silent Dead Controlled Explosions A Savage Hunger Blood Tide The Killing House The Fall  \nThis Could Be Us  \n[OceanofPDF.com](OceanofPDF.com)  \nTHE QUICKENING  \nCLAIRE McGOWAN  \n[OceanofPDF.com](OceanofPDF.com)  \nCORSAIR  \nFirst published in Great Britain in 2026 by Corsair Copyright © Claire McGowan, 2026 The moral right of the author has been asserted.  \nAll characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.  \nAll rights reserved.  \nNo part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.  \nA CIP catalogue record for this book  \nis available from the British Library.  \nISBN: 978-1-4721-6042-3  \nCorsair An imprint of Little, Brown Book Group Carmelite House  \n50 Victoria Embankment London EC4Y 0DZ  \nThe authorised representative in the EEA is Hachette Ireland  \n8 Castlecourt Centre, Dublin 15, D15 XTP3, Ireland (email: [info@hbgi.ie](info@hbgi.ie))  \nAn Hachette UK Company  \n[www.hachette.co.uk](www.hachette.co.uk)[ ](www.hachette.co.uk)[www.littlebrown.co.uk](www.littlebrown.co.uk)[ ](www.littlebrown.co.uk)[OceanofPDF.com](OceanofPDF.com)  \nCONTENTS  \nChapter One  \nChapter Two  \nChapter Three  \nChapter Four  \nChapter Five  \nChapter Six  \nChapter Seven  \nChapter Eight  \nChapter Nine  \nChapter Ten  \nChapter Eleven  \nChapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen  \nChapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen  \nChapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen  \nChapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty  \nChapter Twenty-One  \nChapter Twenty-Two  \nChapter Twenty-Three  \nChapter Twenty-Four  \nChapter Twenty-Five  \nChapter Twenty-Six  \nChapter Twenty-Seven  \nChapter Twenty-Eight  \nChapter Twenty-Nine  \nChapter Thirty  \nChapter Thirty-One  \nChapter Thirty-Two  \nChapter Thirty-Three  \nChapter Thirty-Four  \nChapter Thirty-Five  \nChapter Thirty-Six  \nSix Months Later  \nAuthor ’s Note  \n[OceanofPDF.com](OceanofPDF.com)  \nCHAPTER ONE  \nKaren  \nThe baby is shrieking. Now. Help me. Now. I have to go to it, stop it. The bedroom is dark as I fumble, skinning my knee on the bedside table. Now. Need. Now. I grasp my phone and silence the noise.  \nMy health app blinks at me in the gloom. Test now! You have not submitted a pregnancy test in five days! I’ve heard they make the alarm sound like a baby on purpose, so women can’t sleep through it. Tom has been gone since six, and in any case he long since learned to block it out, just like the actual babies when they were small. Like every time, I think longingly of the day when this will end. I’m forty-five, so as soon as I have a doctor ’s note to say my periods have stopped, I can have the fertility monitoring removed. Some mornings, as the app howls at me, that seems like a very long way off.  \nFeet cold on the bathroom floor, I unwrap a test, pee on it. It’s negative, of course. At my age there is little chance of me getting pregnant, even if Tom and I ever did manage to go to bed at the same time, but I still hold my breath till the result appears and I get my life back.  \nIt’s time for me to be up anyway, my brain already clicking through my endless to-do list. Shower, dress. Breakfast for the kids, PE kits, schoolbags, dinner for later, how many nourish points I can get into it, if I’ll make my quota this week. I open the doors to my children’s rooms, as carefully as when they were babies. Rory is flat on his back, crushed by sleep like a child. When he’s like this, I can still find the shy boy he wa","cbCaicvhCrLHzh2Q","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaicvhCrLHzh2Q","pdf",2813943,262,"English","en",105,"# Contents\n## Chapter One\n## Chapter Two\n## Chapter Three\n## Chapter Four\n## Chapter Five\n## Chapter Six\n## Chapter Seven\n## Chapter Eight\n## Chapter Nine\n## Chapter Ten\n## Chapter Eleven\n## Chapter Twelve\n## Chapter Thirteen\n## Chapter Fourteen\n## Chapter Fifteen\n## Chapter Sixteen\n## Chapter Seventeen\n## Chapter Eighteen\n## Chapter Nineteen\n## Chapter Twenty\n## Chapter Twenty-One\n## Chapter Twenty-Two\n## Chapter Twenty-Three\n## Chapter Twenty-Four\n## Chapter Twenty-Five\n## Chapter Twenty-Six\n## Chapter Twenty-Seven\n## Chapter Twenty-Eight\n## Chapter Twenty-Nine\n## Chapter Thirty\n## Chapter Thirty-One\n## Chapter Thirty-Two\n## Chapter Thirty-Three\n## Chapter Thirty-Four\n## Chapter Thirty-Five\n## Chapter Thirty-Six\n## Six Months Later\n## Author’s Note","[{\"question\":\"What triggers Karen’s first scene in Chapter One?\",\"answer\":\"Karen is woken by a baby-like shriek from her health app telling her to submit a pregnancy test.\"},{\"question\":\"What is the result of Karen’s pregnancy test?\",\"answer\":\"Her pregnancy test is negative, and she immediately turns back to her daily responsibilities.\"},{\"question\":\"How does Karen’s routine reflect the world’s systems?\",\"answer\":\"Her day is shaped by app-driven health monitoring, point quotas, and her children’s programs that must be tracked and supported.\"}]","The Quickening - 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