The German Midwife

The German Midwife  by Mandy Robotham    352 pages

Fans of  “The Alice Network” and “The Tattooist of Auschwitz” are gonna love this debut novel by Mandy Robotham.

 

Anke Hoff is a trained midwife…and a Jew. She is a trained and talented midwife who feels it is her duty to help the pregnant women who arrive in the concentration camp. She has learned not to be hopeful but to be ambivalent to women who ask about their babies’ chances. Chapter One takes place in 1944 in the notorious camp of Ravensburk. It’s heartbreaking to read the pain and suffering these women experienced during labor and what most often happened to their babies. The scenes are rather gruesome, yet realistic/

 

The camp’s guards and administrators know of Anke’s talents.  She is chosen to be the midwife to Eva Braun, who is carrying the heir to the Third Reich.  When she arrives at the Hitler’s mountain retreat, she is given lots of freedoms, but she knows that she if still a prisoner of war. The guards and the servants watch her every move. The only time she feels any real freedom is when she is with Eva.

 

Readers get to experience Eva’s pregnancy, and it begs the question of “What if?’ What if Eva and Adolph Hitler had had a child? And given their end, what would have happened to it?

 

As Eva’s pregnancy slowly and uneventfully progresses, Anke finds herself making friends with her captors and the house servants. She has small, but significant relationships with several of the secondary characters, which adds a second layer to this wonderfully written tale. When Eva does go into labor, there are unexpected complications.

 

Anke is used to making life and death decisions, especially since Hitler’s rise, but her attachment to Eva and others makes for intersting reading.

 

I was surprised by the graphic nature of some of the scenes involving pregnancy, labor and birth. But they are tasteful and appropriate given the nature of this story.

 “The German Midwife”  receives 5 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

The Awful Mess: A Love Story

The Awful Mess: A Love Story by Sandra Hutchison  410 pages

When Mary and Roger Bellamy’s marriage falls apart, Mary seeks solace in the small community of Lawson, New Hampshire. Lawson is typical of a very, very small town. “Everyone in town knows about the young divorcee from Boston who bought Miss Lacey’s house.”  And she’s hardly unpacked!

Mary isn’t a religious person, but she has made her first new friend in Arthur Tennant, the rector of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church. She looks forward to their meetings on the Main Street Bridge. She enjoys Arthur’s company. She knows he’s in an unhappy marriage and can both sympathize and empathize his position. Before long, each falls into a serious case of like.

Arthur is also helping Mary and introducing her to some of the other locals…in particular the town cop, Winslow. Each feels the attraction. Winslow is single and extremely handsome.

Mary is enjoying settling down into her new life. She was able to keep her job as an editor thanks to telecommuting. Now she’s gotten word that the company is getting ready for a big layoff.  She is hopefully that she’ll get lucky and survive. After all, there isn’t any publishing industry job sin Lawson.

There’s a lot going on in Mary’s life: Arthur, whom she had a one-night stand; Winslow, whom she’s unsure of her feelings; and the potential of having to pack up and move when she’s just settled in. And oh yeah, she’s pregnant. After years and years of being told she was incapable of having children, it looks like a miracle has happened! Then Roger reappears to wreak havoc on her life. His interference is shocking.

Mary is a no-nonsense kind of gal. She picks herself up and dusts herself off when the going gets tough. And boy, oh boy, are things getting tough.

I’m a new fan of author Hutchison. I thoroughly enjoyed her other novel, The Rib and Thigh Bones of Desire. Her characters are down to earth and believable, the story lines realistic, the pacing is superb. I was pulled in immediately with the first sentence. Hutchison creates vivid worlds and characters.

I highly recommend The Awful Mess; A Love Story. It’s the perfect book to curl up on the couch with…I wasn’t able to put it down.

 I give it 5 out of 5 stars.

Fiercombe Manor

Fiercombe Manor by Kate Riordan
403 Pages

"In this haunting and richly imagined dual-narrative tale that echoes the eerie mystery of Rebecca and The Little Stranger, two women of very different eras are united by the secrets hidden within the walls of an English manor house. In 1933, naive twenty-two year-old Alice--pregnant and unmarried--is in disgrace. Her mother banishes her from London to secluded Fiercombe Manor in rural Gloucestershire, where she can hide under the watchful eye of her mother's old friend, the housekeeper Mrs. Jelphs. The manor's owners, the Stantons, live abroad, and with her cover story of a recently-deceased husband Alice can have her baby there before giving it up for adoption and returning home. But as Alice endures the long, hot summer at Fiercombe awaiting the baby's birth, she senses that something is amiss with the house and its absentee owners. Thirty years earlier, pregnant Lady Elizabeth Stanton desperately hopes for the heir her husband desires. Tormented by the memory of what happened after the birth of her first child, a daughter, she grows increasingly terrified that history will repeat itself, with devastating consequences. After meeting Tom, the young scion of the Stanton family, Alice becomes determined to uncover the clan's tragic past and exorcise the ghosts of this idyllic, isolated house. But nothing can prepare Alice for what she uncovers. Soon it is her turn to fear: can she escape the tragic fate of the other women who have lived in the Fiercombe valley . . ."

A pretty good historical fiction novel I would give it 3 stars out of five.

Children of Men

The Children of Men by PD James, 241 pages

In the near future, the human race has suddenly, inexplicably become sterile.  Theodore Faron is an Oxford history professor, teaching ever-dwindling numbers of ever-aging students, increasingly a relic of the past in a world that has no future.  His only child died as a toddler in a tragic accident, and his role in the accident destroyed his marriage.  When a former student asks him to deliver a message to his cousin Xan, the dictatorial Marshal of England, he reluctantly obliges, never suspecting that events are already conspiring to turn the ineffectual resistance group to which she belongs into the most important people on the planet.

James, best known as a mystery writer, is trying something different here, though like Cormac McCarthy's The Road, with which it shares much, The Children of Men is not really a science fiction novel - the unexplained apocalypse is only a background intended to throw themes into sharp relief.  James pulls this off superbly, creating a fast-paced story with memorable characters and an ambiguous ending that leaves the readers asking the same questions the author has been asking all along.

Say What You Will

Say What You Will by Cammie McGovern, 343 pages

Amy has Cerebral Palsy.  She doesn’t speak or walk very well and one side of her body doesn’t work very well either.  She doesn’t really have any friends but for her senior year of high school, Amy asks to have peer helpers instead of adult aides.  Even though these teens will be getting paid, she will have the chance to interact more with kids her own age.  Matthew is one of the aides.  He and Amy actually start to become friends.  Except, Amy thinks she might want to be more than friends.  Will Matthew ever want the same thing?  Although this is definitely a romance, it’s really more about Amy and Matthew navigating the world and learning who they are.  This was a really good book that I would give to teens, especially girls, who like realistic fiction.

Rosie Effect

The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion
304 Pages


In the book the Rosie Project, Don Tillman ended up marrying Rosie and the couple moved to New York to start a new life together.  Don is adapting quite well to life with Rosie when she announces that she  is pregnant.  Suddenly Don must revamp all of his expectations and negotiate a minefield of new situations and emotions he doesn't quite understand.  A series of misunderstandings leads to what could be the end of the relationship between Don and Rosie.

While I enjoyed the book I didn't think it was quite as good as the first novel by Simsion.  Mainly I felt this way because I though Rosie should know Don's quirks and manners by now and not become so bent out of shape by his actions.