Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine | Dell for the digital galley of this book.
Midwife Jean is a bit of an outcast, but she knows everyone in town and its outskirts, so when she hears a cry in the night and finds a woman in labor who speaks almost no English. The woman must be the wife of Tobias, her neighbor up the road. Jean helps deliver the baby, and begins to question many things as the days go by. Why would Tobias keepnhisnwife a secret? Why doesn’t she speak any English? Why does Muirin’s open personality close up when he is around. Jean should mind her own business, she knows, but she can’t help but want to help the woman, but she can’t pusher growing feelings for Muirin aside, and she’ll have to come up with a plan to save the woman she loves.
I loved so many things about this book. Despute my personal aversion to pregnancy and childbirth, stories about midwives are one of the random things in my reading wheelhouse. Often, they are portrayed as radical because they are women who help other women in worlds dominated by men. So, I liked Jean. I could also identify with her feeling the outsider. Muirin was fascinating, and I loved how their relationship grow as well as the supporting characters. There are stories of mythology weaved throughout the story, and I’m also a sucker for folklore. This book had me from jump. It’s my first 5-star read of 2024.
SheReadsTales 