Imagining a near future Australia that is all too disturbingly familiar, The Mother Fault is an addictive thriller, a heart-pounding adventure and a moving portrayal of the lengths a mother will go to save her family.

'A triumph of a novel. Five stars. I loved it. Thrilling, confronting, page-turning and heartbreakingly poignant, The Mother Fault is a remarkable story.' Jane Harper, bestselling author of The Dry

You will not recognise me, she thinks, when I find you . . .

Mim's husband is missing. No one knows where Ben is, but everyone wants to find him - especially The Department. And they should know, the all-seeing government body has fitted the entire population with a universal tracking chip to keep them 'safe'.

But suddenly Ben can't be tracked. And Mim is questioned, made to surrender her passport and threatened with the unthinkable - her two children being taken into care at the notorious BestLife.

Cornered, Mim risks everything to go on the run to find her husband - and a part of herself, long gone, that is brave enough to tackle the journey ahead.

From the stark backroads of the Australian outback to a terrifying sea voyage, Mim is forced to shuck off who she was - mother, daughter, wife, sister - and become the woman she needs to be to save her family and herself.

Longlisted for the 2021 ABIA General Fiction Book of the Year

Shortlisted for the 2020 Aurealis Awards, Best Science Fiction Novel

'Sublime . . . a timely, riveting, warning bell of a book.' Books+Publishing

'Brilliant. A raw, urgent, white-knuckle ride through a world only a heartbeat away' James Bradley, author of Ghost Species

'Clever, political, pacy and exciting. Pure diamond-edged propulsive power.' Chris Flynn, author of Mammoth

'Shook me to my core. I could not put it down' Alice Robinson, author of The Glad Shout

'A clarion call, wrapped in vivid prose, inside a truly thrilling read' Angela Savage, author of Behind the Night Bazaar

'An unvarnished, beautifully written, totally authentic tribute to the everyday badassery and bullshit of motherhood, to the ordinary extraordinariness of women. It's also a fast-paced edge-of-your-seat, heart-in-your-mouth adventure with an ending worthy of a Homeland season finale.' Anna Downes, author of The Safe Place

'A literary thriller that speaks precisely, devastatingly, to its time.' The Monthly

'Kate Mildenhall has imagined a world as terrifying and visionary as Margaret Atwood's Gilead, with the pace of the best thrillers - and characters I'll never forget. This is a novel of rare insight from a rising literary star.' J.P. Pomare, author of Call Me Evie

'The true power of this novel is in its appalling plausibility. That, and the fact that it is impossible to put down.' Readings Monthly