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Also by Heather Birrell:

Born, June 2025
Trade Paperback / e-Book

Born
Heather Birrell

Independently Published
June 2025
On Sale: June 17, 2025
Featuring: Elise; Anthony; Samantha
224 pages
ISBN: 1552455009
EAN: 9781552455005
Kindle: B0DK7W2D72
Trade Paperback / e-Book
Add to Wish List

Women's Fiction

What happens when an English teacher goes into labor during a high school lockdown?

High school English teacher Elise loves teaching Shakespeare. She is also very pregnant. One quiet afternoon, she ends up trapped in a classroom with her Grade 12 students when the school is locked down. Anthony, the cause of the lockdown, is roaming the halls with a knife in search of some solace, consumed by thoughts of his best friend Samantha, who is in peril. Maria, the guidance counselor, is second-guessing her decision to turn him in.

As the lockdown drags on, Elise can no longer deny that she’s going into labor. And she’ll have to rely on the students to get her through: Shai-Anna and Faduma end up acting as midwives, and the others do what they can.

In the same way the self shatters and sharpens when one is doing the hard work of giving birth, so does the narrative of the novel, with various people in the school picking up the threads of the story.

With infinite empathy for all involved, Born explores the myriad pitfalls and utopian possibilities of the school system, motherhood, and caregiving, and the sometimes fraught, sometimes transcendent nature of the student-teacher relationship.

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