Review: A Midwife's Song by Patricia Harman

A Midwife's Song

by Patricia Harman

Publisher: Flying Squirrel Press

Pages: 357

Format: book

Buy the Book: Amazon

Goodreads:  It’s 1956, the beginning of the Civil Rights movement in the U.S. and the middle of the Cold War. Revolutions are happening all over the world. On the home front, midwives Patience and Bitsy face personal challenges. Their young adult children are changing. Bitsy’s adopted son returns from Korea wounded in body and spirit. Patience’s daughter is pregnant “out of wedlock,” and Danny, her son, has a problem with booze. Childbirth in the U.S. is changing too. The midwives who were once called for home deliveries have been overshadowed by the new hospital with its “painless childbirth”, until a few rebel nurses appear and Bitsy and Patience step forward to help them. In the midst of these challenges, journals written in the 1850s by Grace Potts, the elder midwife of the Hope River, begin appearing on Patience’s porch at night. The diaries detail Grace’s escapes from slavery when she was fifteen. Who is bringing them? And why? What do the midwives do now? Read the journals, of course. Struggle to understand and help their children, of course. Join the civil rights protests on Main Street, of course… and sing! 


Kritters Thoughts:  The fourth book in a series where I suggest you really start at the beginning as you would miss out on some great character development if you were to start on this one.  

Two women are a midwife duo in a small town in West Virginia.  A white woman and a black woman in the middle of the Civil Rights movement as the country is trying to decipher where they will land on race issues (I could argue this is still going on today, but I digress).  These women have been working together for awhile, but this current climate will test their friendship and they must make some hard decisions.  

I feel as though this series reminds me of Forrest Gump, each book tackles a different moment in time and the major things that are happening at that time in their place.  It was interesting to read about these women as they enter a new era in the United States history and see how they will each react to it.  

I have enjoyed each book in the series.  I wished this one had a little bit more midwifery, it seemed a little light compared to other books in the series, but I still enjoyed the book on the whole.  


Rating: definitely a good read, but can't read two in a row

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from the author.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.