Four star review, originally posted here on June 9th, 2025.
This book started out fantastic, and I love the idea. I appreciated the author’s note at the end, where Lawhon explains that this book is basically inspired by a true person, but in no way based on a true story. In fact, the story here is one that the author totally made up, and the murder at the center of it all never happened. Our protagonist is a real historical figure who left behind a very dry, boring diary listing each day’s weather. Lawhon then took some of these entries, rearranged all of the dates, made up elaborate backstories for townspeople where the record had nothing more than a name, and called it a day. I was disappointed to hear that the only exciting thing to happen in the entire book was completely made up. But, still, the idea of a midwife having to investigate a murder sounded awesome. And, at first, it was. But then this thing just kept on dragging and dragging. The last half could have been dramatically condensed. There were a bajillion characters. The bad guy was cartoonishly evil. The husband’s constant horniness grossed me out (maybe it was the audiobook narration, though.) And the mystery at the beginning seemed to fall off the narrative and get quickly resolved at the end almost as an afterthought. So I didn’t love this book.
But I did still enjoy the book, despite the missed potential. I loved getting a look into this time and place in history. I enjoyed hearing about what life might have been like, and about the frustrating details of the sparse legal system. The general idea that a midwife might know all the backstories in everyone’s families was pretty neat. And there are some neat characters, like the mysterious French-accented black female doctor who, apparently, existed in real life. Would it be fascinating to hear that character’s true story? Yes. Is it recorded anywhere? Apparently no, which is a shame. Oh well.
Helga without the H 