You’re carrying high. Or low, which means it’s a boy, or so they say. Show your hands, dangle a wedding ring over your pregnant belly, do the Comet test, or wait for an ultrasound to know what you’re having. It’s an age-old question: do you hope for a boy or a girl or, as in the new novel “Delicate Condition” by Danielle Valentine, do you just hope it’s human? Up for an Academy Award at not quite forty years old, Anna Alcott seemed to have it all: handsome husband, successful acting career, money, and a nice home. She had everything, except what she desired most of all. Anna wanted a baby. Alas, that wouldn’t happen without a doctor’s help. Anna and her husband, Dex, had tried and tried to get pregnant themselves before calling on one of New York’s best IVF experts. Then there were months of shots, retrievals, surgeries, and surging hormones, sigh. Seeing two lines on the pregnancy test was better than any award, any day. She wasn’t sure what she’d have done without Dex, and her best friend, Siobhan. They were both super-supportive, soothing Anna’s pregnancy fears and frustrations. They were both super-supportive when she lost her baby in the second trimester. Nobody told her that it would hurt so much, physically, to have a miscarriage. She already knew the emotional toll it would take, and she blamed herself at first. She blamed stress, and the adrenaline of dealing with a tech-savvy stalker. And she blamed a mysterious woman named Meg, who came in to take an ultrasound just before the baby died. This “Meg” wasn’t a hospital employee. What had she done to Anna’s baby? Resting at a friend’s beach house, away from prying eyes, Anna could do nothing but think. Could she try again? She wanted to. Who was hacking into her online calendar, trying to scare her? And if everyone was right when they said that she’d lost her baby, why did she feel movement – an exquisite flip-flop of life – from deep inside her belly? Creepy? Yes. Unsettling? Oh, yes, “Delicate Condition” is one of those books that’s very good… but would’ve been better with fifty fewer pages. Just a little tighter is all it needs, and less of the main character spinning and spinning inside her own imagination, making a weary reader wish Anna would just take a breath and rein it in. That spinning, that blah-blah-blah, gets out of hand so reader beware, and don’t let it make you miss the scary stuff. Stick around and let author Danielle Valentine unfold the shuddersome reasons for the brief back-through-history chapters, sharp talons in a belly, demons-not-demons in the bedroom, and the presence of defaced action-figure dolls. You can expect decent frights inside this tale, and they’re worth the work it’ll take to keep focused. If you can skim the slow parts of this book you’ll be rewarded by exciting and menacing pages. Overall, patience is what to remember when you carry “Delicate Condition” to your easy-chair.