Very good for a first novel, written by a full time NHS doctor, but better than the last two or three by well established writers. Interesting to read with Gentleman Jack on the TV at the same time!
Difficult to describe without giving the plot away, but suffice it to say there are two midwifes/doctors in mid-Victorian England, one (female) and apparently untrained but with an extraordinary knowledge of the practicality of child birth and midwifery practising in rural Northumbria, the other (male) in sophisticated London a few years later.
Characters appear and disappear, to begin and end the story, in lightning storms in the moors around Alnwick in Northumberland.
Very good, beautifully written and worth a re-read.
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