Don't Leave Her Alone: a literary novel for fans of The Substance

Rooted in the unsettling familiarity of a suburban shopping mall and the halo of childhood nostalgia, DON'T LEAVE HER ALONE is both an eerie and witty portrait of what happens when fear is left unchecked - festering within us until it consumes us from the inside out.

Alba has spent her life unable to be alone, clinging to the presence of others to silence the anxieties she refuses to face. But when she wakes up on the floor of a shopping mall, covered in blood and with only fragmented memories of how she got there, she is forced to confront the truth she has long avoided. Meanwhile, her sister Diana struggles to balance the pressures of motherhood and work, while their mother, Carmen, remains trapped in an endless cycle of sacrifice and duty, caring for her daughters and grandchildren.

As Christmas Eve approaches, the tension between them becomes unbearable and what once seemed like ordinary family struggles transforms into a surreal nightmare. As the tensions the three women have long held in explode, they're finally forced to confront the terror that connects them.

Haunting, cinematic, and strikingly visceral, Desiree's novel is an incisive exploration of motherhood that interrogates women's struggle for autonomy and identity and ultimately forces the question: what does it take to finally break free?