Book Review: The Midwife by Tricia Cresswell

The Midwife by Tricia Cresswell

Book Title: The Midwife (*Amazon affiliate link)
Author: Tricia Cresswell
Genre: Historical fiction
Published: February 17, 2022 by Pan Macmillan
337 pages
My rating: 3/5

“The woman lay curled in the heather, her skin blue-white against the frost. She was so cold to John Elliott’s first touch; so certainly dead, that the sound of her breathing was shocking.”

1838. A woman is found naked and near death on the Northumberland moors. She has no memory of who she is, but she can still remember how to help a woman in labor. She is named Joanna, later Mrs Sharp, and becomes a nurse and a midwife in the village of Alnwick in Northumberland. A few years later in London, Dr Borthwick works as an accoucheur, a male midwife, helping women from the homes of the high society to the slums of the Devil’s Acre.

The Midwife is a well written and interesting historical fiction. The characters are likable, and this book paints a vivid picture of what it was like to live as a woman in the early Victorian England. The way the two characters’ lives converge was well done, and even though the plot twist was a bit obvious towards the middle of the book, it was an interesting one.

The author of this debut novel is a retired doctor, so you can be sure the medical details are correct, and she clearly has done a lot of research to get the historical details right. At points the story feels repetitive, as there are so many women dealing with pretty much the same issues. A content warning concerning some of the issues is in place, as there are depictions of sexual assault, incest, and the threat of child (sexual) abuse. The descriptions of the underbelly of the Victorian society, the lack of women’s (reproductive) rights, and how women were treated as medical professionals make this book occasionally a harrowing read.

Despite its merits in the historical depiction, this was a very frustrating book. The story is set up as a mystery, but the resolution is lacking. The main character does nothing to solve the mystery of who she is, and ten pages before the book ends we know as much about her as we do ten pages into the book. In the end, the mystery is solved in a rushed manner by the main character telling in a letter what she has learned – her discovery is told but not shown to the reader. Since she does nothing to solve the mystery, she lacks a clear goal and character arc.

To make matters worse, an epilogue adds a completely unnecessary paranormal element to the story. This element doesn’t come as a total surprise as there are hints throughout the book, but the hints are so subtle I hoped I was just reading too much into them. I wasn’t, and unfortunately, the final twist was a huge letdown. If the paranormal elements had been well-developed and present clearly throughout the novel, this book might have been better.

In conclusion, The Midwife is a great historical fiction but fails as a mystery. I would have preferred this either to be purely historical fiction or else that the paranormal aspect had been clearer from the start. In either case, the mystery should have been executed better. I did consider giving it four stars, but I took out one star because the ending was so disappointing. If you simply like to read a depiction of Victorian women’s lives, you’ll probably enjoy this book, but if you want a well-plotted mystery, this isn’t it.

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