Annie is nine months pregnant. She’s shopping for a crib at IKEA. That’s when the massive earthquake hits. There’s nothing to do but walk.
This book deals heavily with pregnancy. Other content warnings include natural disaster, death, child death.
Set over the course of one day, a heart-racing debut about a woman facing the unimaginable, determined to find safety.
Last night, you and I were safe. Last night, in another universe, your father and I stood fighting in the kitchen.
Annie is nine months pregnant and shopping for a crib at IKEA when a massive earthquake hits Portland, Oregon. With no way to reach her husband, no phone or money, and a city left in chaos, there’s nothing to do but walk.
Making her way across the wreckage of Portland, Annie experiences human desperation and kindness: strangers offering help, a riot at a grocery store, and an unlikely friendship with a young mother. As she walks, Annie reflects on her struggling marriage, her disappointing career, and her anxiety about having a baby. If she can just make it home, she’s determined to change her life.
A propulsive debut, Tilt is a primal scream of a novel about the disappointments and desires we all carry, and what each of us will do for the people we love.
Don't just take our word for it...
“Recounting Annie’s precarious journey across the city and into her past, Pattee reveals that the quake has upended more than the earth. A captivating novel.”
– Kirkus (starred review) 🌟
“Every gorgeous page pulses with humor, heartbreak, and the horror of human behavior when the unthinkable happens. Emma Pattee has written a smashing debut that had me turning the pages well into the night.”
– Jessica Knoll, New York Times Bestselling author of Bright Young Women
“Tilt promises wit and style, and reminders of humanity in the face of disaster. A force to be reckoned with.”
– Literary Hub, LitHub’s Most Anticipated Books of 2025
Taste the very first page
LATE MORNING
IKEA, NE Portland
So here we are, thirty-seven weeks pregnant, at IKEA.
Picture me, Bean, if you can picture anything inside of there. My belly distended, a blimp exiting sideways out of my body. I walk in stiff little jerky motions like a stork. Grip on to stair railings. Every few minutes, I have to press my hands against my lower back to stop my spine from breaking in half.
I look so disturbing that I make the other shoppers nervous; they watch me from the corner of their eyes to see what I’ll do next. They stop me to say things like, Bet you’re ready for this to be over, or You look like you’re about to pop!
And IKEA. On a weekday. Dear god. Another reminder that I’m officially unimportant. Only the old people and college students and bartenders shop for furniture on a Monday. And of course the other pregnant ladies. Milling in the crib section like hungry alligators.
I’m wearing a lavender linen romper and Birkenstocks. The kind of thing I would see pregnant women on Instagram wearing and think, Over my dead body. The kind of outfit that takes the EDGE off, that says, I am no longer into fucking, I am now a mother. Please speak to me only in high pitches. But it turns out, Bean, that maternity clothes cost just as much as real clothes. And we still haven’t paid off the bill the clinic sent…
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