#TheMidwifeofHopeRiver – Rosepoint Publishing

Rosepoint Reviews – June Recap – Toasty Temps – Cool Books

Progress came to a screeching halt with spring cleaning. Now with sizzling summer temps, little progress outside, and air conditioning inside, none to zip inside. Windows are a biggee, inside and out, but it’s too hot to contemplate doing windows in 97 degree temps with “feel like” temps of 105 F. Closets, cupboards, still beckon but at least it was hot enough to clean rugs and have them dry enough to walk on within a half a day.

Also, despite all the prep and barricades surrounding my veggies, the varmints found a way to eat the beans and peas, and most anything else I was hoping to harvest by July. I am, however, raising a bountiful crop of mosquitoes in the little water tub for the lotus seeds I planted and coaxed to the surface. The lotus seeds need six hours of sun and don’t get that on the deck but appear quite happy for the time being.

I’m thinking at this point if the critters won’t eat my tomatoes or radishes, maybe that’s all I can count on in my veggie garden. I may rip it out and put in a water feature—transplant my lotus plants. Maybe I could grow frogs.

Of course, we are still going to the Y three times a week, greatly enjoying the classes, meeting other seniors, and discovering muscles we forgot we had. We added another class for the current challenge, ending in August.

My “boys,” the CE and our son, celebrated birthdays the end of June. Upcoming doctor visits are beginning to take an additional toll on time with each birthday though, a reminder that time marches on…and on…

We reviewed sixteen books in June—trying to catch up with the books read during the May hiatus. (I’m still not entirely caught up.) The book up for review in July at the Y Book Club is Beartown, of which I’m familiar, of course, but will have to get the book and familiarize myself with salient points. I had a difficult time with it first time through.

The source of our books is our library, NetGalley, and author and publisher requests. As always, the links on titles are to our reviews that include purchase information.

#RosepointPublishing #JuneRecap

Famous Last Words by Gillian McAllister
Blackout by David Rosenfelt (audiobook)

Mini-reviews

Dogged Pursuit by David Rosenfelt (CE review)

Fatal Verdict by Peter O’Mahoney (CE review)

Smoke on the Water by Jack Bartley (CE review)

What We Left Behind by Luisa A Jones (CE review)

Finlay Donovan Digs Her Own Grave by Elle Cosimano (audiobook)
One in a Million Boy by Monica Wood (audiobook-book club)
Body of Evidence by Stephen Penner (CE review)
A Body at the Book Fair by Ellie Alexander
The Midwife of Hope River by Patricia Harman (audiobook)
How to Hotwire an Airplane by Henry Rausch (buddy read with the CE)
Folded Corners by Jean Grainger

Audiobooks Mini-Reviews

Never Lie by Freida McFadden (audiobook)

Women of War by Suzanne Cope (audiobook)

The Last Conclave by Glenn Cooper (CE review)

Favorite Book of the Month

The CE had more than one five-star review in June. He really loved Smoke on the Water and The Last Conclave, but we both loved How to Hotwire an Airplane.

Favorite for June – How to Hotwire an Airplane

My Reading Challenges page…caught up with May and June but dismayed at the numbers.

The Goodreads landing page may be correct at 94 for a goal of 150 or 63%, but the book count widget is still well off, leading me to believe that even when I reach my goal of 150, it won’t register the win. Otherwise, I appear to be behind in all my challenges except Goodreads.

I hope you found a book or two listed above that appealed to you and I always appreciate your comments. Most especially if you have reading suggestions! Have a warm but safe July!

The Midwife of Hope River by Patricia Harman #AudiobookReview #ThrowbackThursday

A Novel of an American Midwife

Book Blurb:

Midwife Patience Murphy has a gift: a talent for escorting mothers through the challenges of bringing children into the world. Working in the hardscrabble conditions of Appalachia during the Depression, Patience takes the jobs that no one else wants, helping those most in need – and least likely to pay. She knows a successful midwifery practice must be built on a foundation of openness and trust – but the secrets Patience is keeping are far too intimate and fragile for her to ever let anyone in.

Honest, moving, and beautifully detailed, Patricia Harman’s The Midwife of Hope River rings with authenticity as Patience faces nearly insurmountable difficulties. From the dangerous mines of West Virginia to the terrifying attentions of the Ku Klux Klan, Patience must strive to bring new light and life into an otherwise hard world.

My Review:

Stories set in the early thirties are usually full of grit, hardship, and economic misery. Using the Depression as an atmospheric cloak, this novel explores women and their families’ struggle with the impending birth of a baby.

Patience Murphy may be fairly new to the world of midwifery, but she doesn’t lack compassion nor steadfast courage. Particularly in the south and the conditions of the Appalachian residents during that dark time, it’s a practice that brings both joy and distress, adding yet another burden to an already over-burdened home.

And many of the conditions are desperate, from starvation to the inability to confront catastrophic winters.

I appreciated the hardening of Patience as she tests her skills throughout the storyline, sometimes partnering with the local veterinarian in the care of animals whose owners cannot pay for services except perhaps for the offer of a live chicken in exchange.

Patience is in a community in which she’s virtually a stranger, having fled her previous home under suspicious circumstances. The time is rife with discrimination, raw relations, and the struggle against those who would take the worst job away from your own opportunity for employment.

I enjoyed the many births, the unique circumstances, and the backgrounds of the varied women, and also appreciated the inner knowledge Bitsy could convey. I tired, however, of some soap box discussions, perhaps an attempt to juxtapose that time with the same one we are currently experiencing. Also, I found her background pushing disbelief and thought it was not the first time I felt a separation from the main character.

The book is well paced and kept my attention, but I felt there were a few incongruous issues. I downloaded a copy of this audiobook from my local well-stocked library. These are my honest thoughts.

Rosepoint Publishing: Four Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Medical Fiction, Family Life Fiction
Publisher: HarperAudio
ASIN: B01GIAIPNE
Listening Length: 12 hrs 4 mins
Narrator: Anne Wittman
Publication Date: June 3, 2016
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)

Title Links: Amazon-US – Amazon-UK

The Author: Patricia Harman has spent over thirty years caring for women as a midwife, first as a lay-midwife, delivering babies in cabins and on communal farms in West Virginia, and later as a nurse-midwife in teaching hospitals and in a community hospital birthing center.

She spent over a decade in the sixties and seventies in her wild youth living in rural communes in Washington (Tolstoy Farm), Connecticut (The Committee for Non-Violent Action) and Minnesota (Free Folk). During the Vietnam years, she and her husband, Tom Harman, traveled the country, often hitch-hiking, as they looked for a place to settle. In 1974 they purchased a farm with a group of like-minded friends on top of a ridge in Roane County, West Virginia. Here on the commune, they built log houses, dug a pond, grew and preserved their own food and started the Growing Tree Natural Foods Cooperative.

It was during this time that Patsy attended her first home birth, more or less by accident. “Some people are destined,” she has written. “I was staying at a woman friend’s commune when she went into labor and I ended up delivering my first baby.” Soon after, Harman traveled to Austin, Texas to train with a collective of home-birth midwives. When she returned, she became one of the founding members of The West Virginia Cooperative of Midwives. Her passion for caring for women and babies led her to become an RN as the first step in getting licensed as certified nurse midwife. In 1985, with her children, a yowling cat and her husband she traveled north, pulling a broken down trailer to begin her training at the University of Minnesota where she received her MSN in Nurse-Midwifery.

Patricia Harman still lives and works with her husband, Ob/Gyn Thomas Harman, in West Virginia.. Though she no longer attends births, she provides care for women in early pregnancy and through-out the life span. She brings to this work the same dedication and compassion she brought to obstetrics.

#ThrowbackThursday