"Maine, 1789: When the Kennebec River freezes, entombing a man in the ice, Martha Ballard is summoned to examine the body and determine cause of death. As a midwife and healer, she is privy to much of what goes on behind closed doors in Hallowell. Her diary is a record of every birth and death, crime and debacle that unfolds in the close-knit community. Months earlier, Martha documented the details of an alleged rape committed by two of the town's...

"Grace Martindale has known more than her share of hardship. After her parents died, raising her two younger sisters, Hope and Mercy, became her responsibility. A hasty decision to head west seemed like an opportunity for a fresh start but has instead left Grace in a precarious position. When missionary Dr. Marcus Whitman and his wife agree to let Grace and her sisters stay at their mission for the winter, Grace is grateful. Until they hear from their...

Seduced by her employer's son, Evangeline, a naïve young governess in early nineteenth-century London, is discharged when her pregnancy is discovered and sent to the notorious Newgate Prison. After months in the fetid, overcrowded jail, she learns she is sentenced to "the land beyond the seas," Van Diemen's Land, a penal colony in Australia. Though uncertain of what awaits, Evangeline knows one thing: the child she carries will be born on the months-long...

"Neva Bradley, a third-generation midwife, is determined to keep the details surrounding her own pregnancy--including the identity of the baby's father--hidden from her family and coworkers for as long as possible. Her mother, Grace, finds it unbearable to let this secret rest. The more Grace prods, the tighter Neva holds to her story, and the more the lifelong differences between private, quiet Neva and open, gregarious Grace strain their relationship....

The charming Rosemary Cottage offers Amy Lange the respite she needs to mourn her brother, Ben. She's even thinking of moving her midwife practice to the Outer Banks community. Everyone blames Ben's disappearance at sea on a surfing accident, but Amy has reason to wonder. Coast Guard officer Curtis Ireland has lost a sibling too. His sister, Gina, was run down by a boat, leaving him to raise her infant daughter. Can two grieving people with secrets...

Rachel Watkins has her hands full. Her mother had been the town midwife, but after her daughter Alice died under her care, she refused to assist in a childbirth ever again. Since then Rachel has assumed the work. She also takes care of Alice's six-year old, Charlotte, because the child's father was lost in World War I. But Rachel's principal job is running the boardinghouse that is the family's main source of income. One day, Charlotte befriends a...

"In small-town Trinity, Pennsylvania, 1831, Martha Cade tries to balance the demands of her calling as a midwife, the delicacy of private information she learns in that role, and the hopes and expectations she has for her daughter and for herself." --

Francine Howard has her life all mapped out until the soldier she planned to marry at WWII's end writes to tell her he's in love with a woman in England. Devastated, Francine seeks a fresh start in the Appalachian Mountains, training to be a nurse midwife for the Frontier Nursing Service. Deeply affected by the horrors he witnessed at war, Ben Locke has never thought further ahead than making it home to Kentucky. His future shrouded in as much mist...

Reluctant midwife Emma Trimpany is just 17 when she assists at the harrowing birth of the Dionne quintuplets: five tiny miracles born to French farmers in hardscrabble Northern Ontario in 1934. Emma cares for them through their perilous first days and when the government decides to remove the babies from their francophone parents, making them wards of the British king, Emma signs on as their nurse. Over 6,000 daily visitors come to ogle the identical...

When a Texas Ranger comes to town on a mission to capture his brother's killers, he finds more than he expected--including a young midwife who may hold the key to the justice he seeks. When her husband is murdered and her baby stillborn, there is nothing left for Thea Michener in Ladreville. She accepts a position as Cimarron Creek's midwife. When a Texas Ranger turns up on her doorstep with an abandoned baby, she can't turn him away. Ranger Jackson...