Motherfaker by Anna Brook-Mitchell

Rebel-in-a-smock-dress Barri Brown has spent years slaving away as an English teacher in Guernsey, covering for colleagues with kids and barely tolerating the unhygienic staffroom etiquette. With a distant family and a husband who has just vanished along with her life savings, Barri dreams of escape.

Her wild plan? Pretend she’s having a baby and use the paid year off work to start over somewhere new. And so Barri tells the school she’s pregnant, orders seven bumps on the internet and sets the wheels in motion for her great pregnancy heist.

All she has to do is blag it until she can disappear for good, without getting caught and being sent to prison for fraud. How hard could it be?

On a small island like Guernsey: nightmarish. Especially when her student, fifteen-year-old irredeemable troublemaker Callum, discovers her secret. To make matters worse, Barri’s fake pregnancy forces her to make genuine connections with friends and family for the first time in years and she begins to understand the true cost of her deception.

It turns out scamming your way to a better life is harder when you start liking the life you’re supposed to escape from . . .

A happily childfree-by-choice teacher decides to fake a pregnancy to get a year off work. Pulling off this ‘immaculate misconception’ should be easy enough, right? Wrong . . .

About the Author: Anna Brook-Mitchell is a BAFTA Rocliffe Comedy-winning writer, actor and filmmaker. Her BBC Comedy Short Film, MAN EATER – written with her screenwriting partner, Angela Nesi – aired on BBC Three in 2023 and was selected for Raindance 2024 as part of the Nova Express Shorts Programme. Anna lives in South East London and, when she’s not writing, she enjoys swimming, watching sport and playing the trumpet (badly) in the City Showtunes Orchestra.

26 Feb 2026
 

Motherfaker: A hilarious and unputdownable debut novel about what to expect when you’re not expecting! by Anna Brook-Mitchell ISBN 9781035089291