The Farm | Joanne Ramos

Nestled in New York’s Hudson Valley is a luxury retreat boasting every amenity: organic meals, personal fitness trainers, daily massages—and all of it for free. In fact, you’re paid big money to stay here—more than you’ve ever dreamed of. The catch? For nine months, you cannot leave the grounds, your movements are monitored, and you are cut off from Jane, an immigrant from the Philippines and a struggling single mother, is thrilled to make it through the highly competitive host selection process at Golden Oaks, a luxury retreat where women are paid big money to be surrogate mothers for the uber wealthy. But once she arrives at "The Farm" pregnant, fragile, and cut off from her own daughter, she discovers a different world behind the pristine façade. Along with the other hosts, Jane's existence becomes strictly regimented and meticulously observed--all for the benefit of their unseen clients. Mae Yu, the ambitious entrepreneurial manager at Golden Oaks has high hopes for these girls. And while they've all enlisted in the experiment of "The Farm" with good intentions, nine months can be a long, fraught time...

The intersecting lives of these unforgettable characters play out against the backdrop of the rural Hudson Valley, the lavish homes of the One Percent, and a crowded dormitory in Queens where immigrant service workers rent beds by the day. Ramos reveals the tension between luck and merit in life and illuminates the tradeoffs women make to fortify their futures, and the futures of those they love.your former life while you dedicate yourself to the task of producing the perfect baby. For someone else.

Jane, an immigrant from the Philippines, is in desperate search of a better future when she commits to being a “Host” at Golden Oaks—or the Farm, as residents call it. But now pregnant, fragile, consumed with worry for her family, Jane is determined to reconnect with her life outside. Yet she cannot leave the Farm or she will lose the life-changing fee she’ll receive on the delivery of her child.

Gripping, provocative, heartbreaking, The Farm pushes to the extremes our thinking on motherhood, money, and merit and raises crucial questions about the trade-offs women will make to fortify their futures and the futures of those they love.