A review by emdebell
The Midwife of Hope River by Patricia Harman

2.0

I should have enjoyed this book - I love stories of midwifery, of the 1920-30s, of small mountain towns, of women and history etc. Unfortunately the writing quality was so poor I almost didn't finish reading it. Not only was it saturated with cliches, but some of the phrases she used weren't anywhere near accurate for the time it was set in (once Patience says "that pisses me off" ...really? in the 30s?) and the conflict/growth was contrived. History was added in a way that spoke more of the author's research than being true to the characters, with the phrase "not many people knew that" used on more than one occasion. The author's choice to write in present tense posed some problems as well. However, if you are mainly interested in reading vivid birth scenes and don't care about writing quality, you may enjoy the book, although even those are rushed and out of place. Overall it was quite shallow and poorly done, failing to evoke any connection with the characters, the setting, the era, or the story.