A. Chan

Bold, harsh, haunting

Revisado: 02-25-25

Haunting flickers of memory that linger in the air like the strains of a guitar string or a piano note or a heady perfume. I’m left quite breathless.

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A beautiful, life-affirming story with evocative narration

Revisado: 09-25-24

Rachel Yong did a glorious job bringing beloved people to life. Thank you to her for “seeing” me and my family so well.

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Very satisfying historical fiction

Revisado: 08-05-24

Would probably rate this a 4.5 because the research is fantastic and the story is both intricate and satisfying (a midwife, a murder, daily life and gender realities of 18th-century Maine), with a small side dose of romance between a lovely and loving midwife and her longtime husband. I loved the details of daily life in colonial Maine and the slow accumulation of evidence for what had happened surrounding the discovery of a murdered man in the frozen Kennebec River. But although this is a story told through a midwife’s eyes, and based on a real life midwife from that era who birthed over 1000 babies and never lost a mother, I didn’t love the number of birth scenes in the book. I understand the desire to dramatize all the ways a birth can go (or go wrong), and I’d probably argue that that is appropriate for this kind of tale, but I found myself not really wanting to get into it again the last 2 or 3 births described. Having been through birth myself twice, I had kind of had enough of lengthy descriptions of birthing mothers’ suffering. I didn’t want to dwell in it anymore and didn’t think all of the births necessarily furthered the story. I also thought I detected a bit of feminist voicing that felt a bit anachronistic for the period. While I believe Martha Ballard would have been ahead of her time, maybe not always THAT much ahead. The end turned it around for me, though. I thought it was a great ending. And the narrator was also excellent, very easy and soothing to listen to.

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Masterful use of dialog in world building

Revisado: 06-27-24

This book was such great fun. I listened to the audiobook, which was also excellently narrated. I found the narrator’s voice to be soothing as well as versatile and compelling.

The story is one of political court intrigue in a fantasy world and concerning a Queen who wants to break free of the terrible legacy of her father, but who must first face the conniving and treasonous intent of the old guard nobility who want to keep things as they have been—that is, venal and corrupt with cruel inequities among the populace.

The first thing I noticed was that this book is excellently written, just from a craft perspective. The authors made masterful use of dialog to build the world and create suspense as the reader gradually clues in to “what’s going on,” almost exclusively from the dialog alone. That is so hard to do and so naturally, and these authors nailed it. The action beats, too, were pretty much perfect and fleshed out the world and story and characters themselves to a really satisfying degree. I also loved the attention to sensory detail, which made the world feel rich and engaging.

Characterizations and voicing for each one were also superb and I thought the internal stakes as well as motivations for each character were communicated *really* well. This was a really good read and I definitely want to know what happens in Book 2.

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