By the Secret Ladder: A Mothers Initiation

Frances Greenslade turns her keen eye to the familiar subject of motherhood, and renders it new. In an era when women know exactly “what to expect,” as well as how they’ll give birth, feed their babies, and whether they’ll go back to work or stay at home, the reality of new motherhood is anything but expected. Overwhelmed, exhausted, and often confused, the refrain of new mothers is more often this: “Nobody told me it would be this way. I had no idea.”

Until now.

Based upon her own, at times dramatic, childbirth experience, By The Secret Ladder articulates with unflinching candour the fear, trauma, and unsurpassed joy that all women undergo, but few talk about, on their journey to motherhood—a journey Greenslade envisions as nothing less than a transforming, even heroic, quest.

By The Secret Ladder rediscovers motherhood for a new generation. Wise and funny, it will strike a powerful and comforting chord in mothers, new or experienced.