the secret midwife book review

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Babies and Bad Management

The Secret Midwife: Life, Death and the Truth about Birth by The Secret Midwife

February 25, 2021 by ASKReviews Leave a Comment

In a nutshell: Secret Midwife ‘Pippa’ shares her time as a midwife, from starting training at age 17 through having to be signed off for stress as cuts to the NHS made staffing more and more scarce.

Worth quoting: Audio book that I listened to while running, so I didn’t make note of any.

Why I chose it: I find memoirs (and comedy books) to be best for running, as there isn’t a plot I need to keep track of. I also enjoy books about the medical profession and, despite not having or wanting children of my own, I find books and TV about childbirth and parenting to be kind of fascinating.

Review: I previously read The Secret Barrister, which I found to be a great introduction to the legal system after I moved to the UK. The concept of these ‘Secret’ books is that by not sharing their names, the authors are able to provide further, more honest insight into their respective professions. One might wonder why a midwife might need to keep her identity hidden – the parents, sure, would need to be anonymized for their privacy, but the midwife?

And then you read the book, and realize it’s because if she were identifiable, she couldn’t speak honestly about the failures of management and the NHS Trust for which she works without fear of retaliation. The more I think about it, the more I get it – pretty much every worker in every field fears for retaliation when they point out the failings of their companies and managers. Why would midwifery be any different?

‘Pippa’ trains as a midwife starting at age 17, becoming fully qualified by age 20. She shares stories of successful births, unsuccessful births, stillbirths, miscarriages (including her own), and angry parents who blame midwives when things do go according to plan. She also shares her own depression and stressed caused by a complete lack of support from management. Midwives are working more with fewer resources – at one point ‘Pippa’ shares that there could be as many as 40 women on the ward with only 6 midwives available! That’s absurd.

The NHS has been receiving loads of praise lately because of their herculean efforts during the pandemic. And that praise is justly deserved – doctors and nurses have been working flat out to save as many lives as possible. But the NHS has been stripped of so much funding as of late, treated less like what it should be – a public institution providing excellent care for everyone – and more like a private business. And anyone who as lived anywhere with a primarily private healthcare system knows that is NOT the model to emulate.

The Secret Midwife is an excellent storyteller, and the person who read the audio book did a great job bringing those stories to life. I’m not sure if this needs to be a listen instead of a read, but I think either option will work.

Keep it / Pass to a Friend / Donate it / Toss it: N/A (Audio book)

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Tuesday 7 December 2021

Book review: 'the secret midwife'.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The book is written by a midwife who remained anonymous and she shared in her book in a chronological fashion. At 17 she didn't know where to take her life and then went on a midwifery taster course and loved it and she knew then that that was her vocation. At 17 she started her 3 year midwifery diploma. She took the reader through her training as a midwife until she qualified and proudly put on her blue dress for her first shift as a qualified midwife. 

The book followed the highs and lows of her career and she went into such detail including the medical aspects and I learnt so much about the role midwives play and all the complications that can happen. As well as that she also shared her person life; how she broke off a long term relationship and then found her husband and their relationship and life together, her miscarriage of her first baby and then the birth of her daughter. 

In the book she also shared the changes of her role as an NHS worker as the years passed by. The way management changed, new protocols and changes to NICE guidelines and work practices. As well as this she also spoke of how it was like to work for the NHS and the strain on resources, lack of support in certain areas such as giving evidence in court and chronic staff shortages. In the book the author shared how this ultimately lead her to having a mental breakdown and having time off work due to anxiety and depression.

Each book touched on different topics and themes of the job such as her midwifery training, baby loss, mental health in motherhood, babies born in corridors and in toilets, Dad's delivering their baby as there was no time to get to the hospital, birthing complications, surrogate women, different cultures and how this affects the delivery of a baby among many other things.

It was a totally different book to the ones I've been listening to for quite a while now and I throughly loved this book and I've already sought out similar books. I learnt a lot about the role a midwife, what they do and so much more. That whole side of healthcare I'd never given much thought to and I now admire the complex role midwives play within the NHS. 

As I listened to the book I followed the highs and lows of the different men and women the author featured in the book. There where funny moments and more somber elements. It's a book I would defiantly recommend. 

The Secret Midwife by Philippa George and Katy Weitz [Book Review]

by Eliza | Mar 11, 2022 | Book Blog , Book Reviews | 0 comments

The Secret Midwife: An Audible Review

Book Description:

For fans of  One Born Every Minute .

The Secret Midwife  is a heart-breaking, engrossing and important read. At once joyful and profoundly shocking, this is the story of birth, straight from the delivery room.

Strongest supporter, best friend, expert, cheerleader and chief photographer . . . Before, during, and after labor the role of a midwife is second to none.  The Secret Midwife  reveals the highs and lows on the frontline of the maternity unit, from the mother who tries to give herself a DIY caesarean to the baby born into witness protection, and from surprise infants that arrive down toilets to ones that turn up in the lift.

But there is a problem; the system which is supposed to support the midwives and the women they care for is starting to crumble. Short-staffed, overworked, and underappreciated – these crippling conditions are taking their toll on the dedicated staff doing their utmost to uphold our National Health Service, and the consequences are very serious indeed.

Not the Right Midwife?

On my to-be-read list for 2022, I had this book called The Midwife by Katja Kettu. The book that I am reviewing today is not that book. For whatever reason, when I went to Audible and searched up the book by Katja Kettu, I came across another book titled The Secret Midwife. These books are not even in the same genre, as The Secret Midwife is a medical non-fiction book and The Midwife is solidly fiction. But I decided to listen to The Secret Midwife because I am a huge fan of Call the Midwife (the BBC series, not the book – but only because I have not read it yet.)

Okay, now that I have that round-a-bout explanation out of the way, this book was fantastic. I listened to the audiobook, which had a wonderful narrator.

In the beginning, I was not very interested in a story about a young girl who was desperate to become a midwife and wasn’t great at school. I wasn’t invested in her journey yet and I found it a little dull. But I liked the way that the information was presented and the author injected humor into it as often as she could. When I first started listening to the book, I would listen for ten or fifteen minutes here and there, or while driving. It was great in the background. But that quickly changed.

Over time, I began to really like the midwife in the book. I really cared about her journey, her relationships, her evolution as a mother, and her career. I loved that she was completely honest about her struggle as a working mom. There is a moment where she so badly wants to be there for her daughter but instead snaps at her daughter because she also cannot play with her after work. Inevitably, this is followed by guilt. The character follows this path of being a hopeful, naïve student midwife to a successful, senior midwife, to a working mother and wife who is struggling with depression and excessive expectations at her work. Her story arch was a rollercoaster of emotions and I was rooting for her and her family the whole time.

A Medical Memoir

This book is an autobiography/memoir, with a lot of medical information in it. I found all of this very interesting and while none of it was new to me, I found the stories interesting. I was really surprised that in some of the book’s darkest moments, the author was able to keep a thread of hope. In one story, where a baby is tragically stillborn, the author somehow makes it possible for us to feel at peace with this. I generally avoid any books that mention child/infant mortality because I generally find it so horribly sad that I can’t focus on any of the other details of the story or book. But with this one, the midwife’s kindness towards the parents that must go on after this tragedy was really endearing, and instead of blinding sadness, I felt mostly compassion for those that are forced to endure trauma like that.

There are incredible ups and downs in this story and I found myself wishing that it had gone on to the present day. I am curious about how the midwife would have handled the coronavirus pandemic and whether she would choose to continue on the career path. The state of the hospitals at the end of the book seems grim. There is a huge lack of staffing and most of the nurses, midwives, and doctors are overworked and overstressed. This feels even more bleak reading this from the future, when we know that a pandemic is right around the corner and definitely made things more challenging for everyone, but especially medical professionals.

If you enjoyed television shows such as Call the Midwife or One Born Every Minute, you will enjoy reading (or listening) to The Secret Midwife.

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“The Midwife’s Secret” by Emily Gunnis – Book Review

This engrossing story is told via three timelines:

“It is God’s will that a woman suffers in childbirth, he says, and it is not my place to interfere with God’s will – though he will happily interfere with his forceps and scalpels so he is home in time for dinner.” – (from Tess James’ notebook where she is speaking of the local physician, Dr. Jenkins)

1946 – Midwife Tessa James is unjustly convicted of murder when she is blamed for a bungled delivery by the local doctor. Both mother and baby perished due to his ineptitude. Midwives back then were often defiled by physicians and even the church who thought they ‘ helped ‘ women get rid of unwanted pregnancies. Tessa lives at the Vicarage with her young grandson, Alfie while her daughter Bella is off working elsewhere as a domestic servant.

1969 – Bobby James is the great-grandson of midwife Tessa James. He  is fifteen and lives with his father, Alfie, and young sister Nell on a farm adjoining the Hilton’s estate. When Alice Hilton, the six-year-old daughter of the powerful Hilton family goes missing, Bobby is the last to have seen her. He is imprisoned, though Alice’s body was never found. Meanwhile, his young sister Nell is sent off to a sanatorium because she caught tuberculosis from the cattle.

2017 -Willow James – the midwife’s great-great granddaughter, and the daughter of Bobby James, is a young architect working on her first big project. It has personal meaning for her as it involves the development of land that her family has lived on for generations. A tricky project because it means the demolition of two listed homes. Willow realizes that her boss has manipulated her into taking the fall for some unscrupulous practices. In order to salvage the project and save her budding career, Willow delves into the history of her family.

On the day that the Hilton family are to move out of their manor house to make way for its demolition, the young daughter of Leo Hilton goes missing. Almost fifty years ago Leo’s sister Alice went missing at almost the same age…. Could history be repeating itself?

Meanwhile, Leo’s mother Vanessa is muddled. She is confused as to whether it is Alice or her granddaughter Sienna who is missing. She has never really gotten over the trauma of losing her beloved daughter Alice all those many years ago.

What a great read! This is a story of social injustice, corruption, and ancient crimes. This is my first read by this author and I have to say her writing reminded me a bit of that of Kate Morton and/or Eve Chase.

It is the story of two families: the ‘ haves ‘, the Hiltons, and the ‘ have-nots ‘, the James. The families live on adjoining properties and the James’s have suffered at the hands of the powerful Hilton family for decades. Social inequality is the overriding theme in my opinion. It shows how the rich and powerful can manipulate those with less – to their detriment.

This is not a crime novel as such, but there are many crimes to be found within its pages. The callous Leo Hilton was a truly despicable character.

“ The Midwife’s Secret ” was a memorable novel that spoke of grave losses and family skeletons/secrets. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Recommended!

Publication date: October 28, 2021     Publisher: Headline Review

Her debut novel, The Girl in the Letter , was published in August 2018 and has sold nearly half a million copies worldwide and been translated into 17 languages. The Lost Child , her second novel was published in April of 2020. The Midwife’s Secret is her third novel.

Emily Gunnis lives in Sussex with her husband Steve and her two beautiful, very energetic girls, Grace and Eleanor.

Follow Emily Gunnis on Twitter @EmilyGunnis

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16 responses to “the midwife’s secret” by emily gunnis – book review.

Just curious–Leo married Helen, but Helen was actually Nell. So doesn’t that mean that Leo married his 2nd cousin?

Gosh Judie, I have read approximately 180 novels since reading this one. I honestly cannot remember the logistics of the relationships. Sorry. However, I do know that it is legal to marry a second cousin – therefore it is highly possible.

Wonderful review, Lynne. I am definitely adding this one to my TBR. I like the elements and your comparison to Kate Morton.

Hope you enjoy it Carla 😍

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Definitely will consider reading this, I thought her first novel was great.

Good to know. Thanks NS. 👍📚

Sounds great Lynne definitely adding this to Goodreads!

Hope you enjoy it Nicki. ♥

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Great review! This sounds like one I would really enjoy and I’ll absolutely be adding it to my TBR!

Wonderful! I’m pleased that I could tempt you Sheri. ♥

And I’m grateful, thank you. ☺🌹

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The Secret Midwife Kindle Edition

From the bestselling author of The London Girls comes a story of courage and resilience amidst the horror of Auschwitz—and one woman’s last chance to share it with the world.

London, 1995: When on the fiftieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz a news broadcast runs an appeal for information on the identity of a midwife who saved hundreds of lives, Emilia knows it is time to finally tell her story.

Occupied Poland, 1942: Despite the constant presence of German soldiers in her village, Emilia is allowed certain freedoms as a midwife—the most precious is innocently cycling past Nazi checkpoints to the homes of expectant mothers on her rounds. But Emilia has a secret: for years she’s also been visiting the hidden Jewish mothers and working for the resistance…until she is betrayed.

Suddenly a prisoner of Auschwitz, Emilia is surrounded by horror and despair. When she is put to work as a midwife in the camp, she realises that she has a chance to bring a small glimmer of hope to the pregnant women of Auschwitz. Alongside a brave imprisoned doctor, Aleksy, and an innocent outcast, Lena, she comes up with a dangerous plan. A plan that if discovered could mean a fate far worse than death, but if they act undetected, they could save countless lives…

The Secret Midwife is a work of fiction, but inspired by many real-life accounts of the Polish resistance, the brave doctors, nurses and midwives imprisoned in the camps and those who fought to save as many lives as possible in Poland during World War II.

• Print length 322 pages
• Language English
• Sticky notes On Kindle Scribe
• Publisher Lake Union Publishing
• Publication date 1 Aug. 2023
• File size 6569 KB
• Page Flip Enabled
• Word Wise Enabled
• Enhanced typesetting Enabled
• See all details

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From the Publisher

Product description

About the author.

Soraya M. Lane graduated with a law degree before realising that law wasn’t the career for her and that her future was in writing. She is the author of historical and contemporary women’s fiction, and her novel Wives of War was an Amazon Charts bestseller. Soraya lives on a small farm in her native New Zealand with her husband, their two young sons, and a collection of four-legged friends. When she’s not writing, she loves to be outside playing make-believe with her children or snuggled up inside reading. For more information about Soraya and her books, visit www.sorayalane.com or www.facebook.com/SorayaLaneAuthor, or follow her on Twitter: @Soraya_Lane.

Product details

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0BQND5QN4
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Lake Union Publishing (1 Aug. 2023)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• File size ‏ : ‎ 6569 KB
• Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
• Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 322 pages
• Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 1662504063
• 12 in Historical Romance (Kindle Store)
• 18 in Medical Fiction (Kindle Store)
• 22 in Medical Fiction (Books)

About the author

Soraya m. lane.

Soraya M. Lane graduated with a law degree before realizing that law wasn't the career for her and that her future was in writing. She is the author of historical and contemporary women's fiction, and her novel Wives of War was an Amazon Charts bestseller.

Soraya lives on a small farm in her native New Zealand with her husband, their two young sons and a collection of four legged friends. When she's not writing, she loves to be outside playing make-believe with her children or snuggled up inside reading.

For more information about Soraya and her books, visit www.sorayalane.com or www.facebook.com/SorayaLaneAuthor, or follow her on Twitter @Soraya_Lane

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#BlogTour #BookReview The Midwife’s Secret by Emily Gunnis @EmilyGunnis @Mobius_Books @headlinepg #TheMidwifesSecret #EmilyGunnis #MobiusBooksUS

A little girl goes missing from Yew Tree Manor – the same house from which a girl vanished decades before. Does the key to the present lie buried even deeper in the past, in the forgotten history of an innocent midwife accused by a family of shocking betrayal? A gripping, heartwrenching story of love, loyalty and family secrets.

From the internationally bestselling author of THE GIRL IN THE LETTER and THE LOST CHILD.

When six-year-old Alice Hilton goes missing in the snow on New Year’s Eve 1969 from Yew Tree Manor, suspicion immediately falls on local man Alf Simms. Simms had a grievance against Alice’s father, wealthy Richard Hilton, and he is arrested, tried and found guilty for Alice’s death. Tragically the child is never found.

Decades later, Willow Simms, an architect working on a development at Yew Tree Manor, discovers that the land surrounding the house is holding a secret. And when another little girl goes missing from Yew Tree, Willow realizes the key to her disappearance lies in the history of the house, and the two families attached to it. A terrible wrong needs to be made right…and to uncover it, Willow must unravel events from long ago, when in 1919 a court sentenced a midwife to death, for a shocking crime that happened at Yew Tree Manor…

Absorbing, mysterious, and moving!

The Midwife’s Secret transports you to Sussex, England between 1946 and 2017, and immerses you into the ongoing, complex, multi-generational relationships between the wealthy, entitled Hilton family and the poor, victimized James family complete with all the powerful emotions, despicable tales, long-buried secrets, and unimaginable tragedy that has tied them together for the past seventy years.

The prose is eloquent and expressive. The characters are vulnerable, conflicted, and hardworking. And the plot is an enthralling, emotional saga filled with life, loss, familial drama, survival, betrayal, corruption, social injustice, tragedy, inequality, manipulation, and heartbreak.

Overall,  The Midwife’s Secret  is a heart-tugging, clever, haunting tale by Gunnis that reminds us that the choices we make often have far-reaching consequences, and skeletons often find their way to the surface no matter how well they’re buried.

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

Thank you to Mobius Books US for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

About Emily Gunnis

Emily Gunnis previously worked in TV drama and lives in Brighton with her young family. She is one of the four daughters of Sunday Times bestselling author Penny Vincenzi.

Photo courtesy of Author's Website.

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