Patience Hester keeps herself pretty busy in Hope River as the resident midwife in the local area and the whole county. She’s also a mom of four active youngsters and takes care of the farm animals. Her husband, Daniel Hester, is the local veterinarian and stays busy too. It’s early 1940s and the war has been happening overseas. Daniel, a veteran of WW1, has said he could never kill again and has become a pacifist. When the local registration signup for the draft comes to town, he doesn’t sign up, which causes tension in the family. Patience believes he should sign up, but he thinks he will be disqualified. His oldest child, Danny, is having trouble with his father too when some people call his father a coward. When Daniel is arrested outside the movie theater with his children close by, Patience ends up having to run the farm by herself. She learns to write her fears down in her diary and not in her letters to her husband. Fortunately for Patience, she has a solid group of friends nearby who try to help her when they can. Her faith keeps her love for Daniel in the forefront as she struggles with her daily life.
[alert variation=”alert-info”]Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Formats: Hardcover, Paperback, eBook, Kindle, Audiobook, Audible
Purchase: Amazon | iBooks[/alert]
This is number seven in the Hope River novel series that takes place in West Virginia. The author continues with her long running story of this midwife in great detail. Her characters are well-known and loved for loyal followers, but the story works as a standalone novel for readers new to the series. The author goes into detail about pacifist ideas and how they were dealt with at that time with the ongoing raging conflict. This is a story more about how the war affects the family than with Patience’s job as a midwife, as the role of midwives is slowly coming to an end. This is a great read for historical fiction readers.