Reviewed by Emma Crowley
Auschwitz, January 1945: forced on a terrifying death march from the notorious concentration camp, midwife and former secret agent Maggie must find the strength to protect the tiny baby girl her dying friend left to her care. Only weeks old, little Leah is in terrible danger – from the Nazis, from the freezing weather, from starvation.
So when a company of soldiers led by brave Captain Jamie Maclean rescues the marching women, Maggie’s relief knows no bounds. But it soon turns to astonishment when Jamie vows to help Maggie reunite Leah with her father – he has fallen in love with Maggie, and will do everything in his power to assist her.
Maggie can’t yet trust her own, budding, feelings. But she accepts Jamie’s help, and slowly starts to dream of a life together. Until Maggie gets the news every survivor dreads. The most fearsome Nazi of all, Dr Mengele, the terror of Auschwitz, has escaped – and she may be the only person strong enough to track him down.
Looking at baby Leah’s trusting eyes, Maggie’s heart is torn. But she has to find Mengele and bring him to justice. Can she succeed on the most terrifying mission of her life, when so many others have failed? And if she does, will she find her way back home to the ones she loves, or will the heartbreak of everything she has suffered destroy any chance of happiness, forever?
Many thanks to Bookouture via NetGalley for my copy of The Midwife’s Child to review and to Sharon for having my review on the blog.
The Midwife’s Child, is the third book in the World War 2 Resistance series by Amanda Lees. It has a harrowing and emotional opening as a woman lies on the brick stove at the centre of her block in Auschwitz. Eva is a French Jew who has lost her twins to the hands of Dr. Mengele and is now giving birth to a little girl Leah. She calls her for her husband Antoine but he is not at the camp but she has Maggie, who was training to be a doctor and a nurse Hanna by her side, both fellow inmates at the camp. January, 1945 and orders are issued to begin marching from the camp. The Germans know the Soviets are drawing ever closer and they are trying to get rid of every piece of evidence of their crimes and brutality. Eva is in no fit state to be moved so Maggie agrees to smuggle baby Leah from the camp in the hopes that she can reunite her with her father. Maggie realises she knows Antoine through her work as a Resistance member and she is determined that she will fulfil Eva’s wish.
The chapters move back and forth between the months prior to the evacuation and the present where Maggie suffers greatly on the way and what follows thereafter is also detailed. My feelings regarding this are detailed further on. The scenes that are described are haunting and harrowing as an already weakened group suffer through the Polish countryside in winter. But Maggie is steadfast in wanting to keep her promise and as baby Leah clings to her she hopes with all her might that a miracle may occur in that she may reach safety and ultimately reunite with her Resistance colleagues. The group are ambushed as they walk but thankfully it is the Soviets who pick off the German soldiers and amongst them is a British man named Captain Jamie MacClean.
The minute Jamie set eyes on Maggie he fell in love with her and it was as if she was the one, he had been seeking his entire life. As the chapters progress and Maggie finds herself in a displaced persons camp, she too begins to reciprocate the feelings that Jamie has. But the love they share is to be severely tested time and time again. At times, I did think the connection and romance between the pair was down played a little bit in that other factors of the story took more precedence and I suppose this did initially annoy me but I came to realise that their relationship was a backdrop of sorts to a bigger story unfolding and that it would come to the fore and slot into place at the appropriate time. As the pair are separated due to the nature of Jamie’s war work, Maggie’s priority lies with Leah and her dedication is nothing short of remarkable. But at the back of her mind is always the hope that Jamie will survive the challenges that war will bring him and that they can be reunited but there is a lot of water to flow under the bridge before any of that could possibly happen.
I have to say that I much preferred the chapters when Maggie reaches Paris as opposed to the ones which focused on her time on the camp. I questioned why they were there given we knew the outcome but having had time to reflect they were necessary for the reader to really gain an insight and good understanding of what fuelled the fire in Maggie’s belly. She had been to hell and back, to the eye out of the storm and knowing what she knew and what she had experienced, it only inspired her to keep going with the cause. I thought the scenes set in Paris and the ones in particular which featured a hotel now turned into a centre for displaced people were great as they allowed a sense of mystery to develop as to what unusual characters were up to. It also showed how people freed from camps had to cope in their new, alternative world so very different to the one they had previously known. I loved how Maggie got right back into Resistance work and some of the characters that had featured in the previous books made a reappearance. One in particular, I feel there could be a further book about but that mightn’t happen. Maggie wants to strike back for all the people that were needlessly killed in Auschwitz and the millions of other people too. How she goes about doing this whilst staying true to her morals and beliefs was very good and also her longing for Jamie remained evident throughout also.
The first half of the book I did find quite confusing sometimes because it felt like I had skipped chapters and I knew I hadn’t. Which meant you really had to take note of the chapter headings which detailed specific dates and places in which the events of that chapter occurred. I found the chapters really moved around the place, back and forth up until halfway the halfway point and when this ended, I was slightly relieved because I then found the events and strands of the story much easier to follow. There was no more crossing over or repetition which didn’t move the story on. Instead things settled into a much better rhythm and I found my self enjoying the story much more as I didn’t have to be as aware of the headings as I needed to previously. The setting and the content within each chapter was clearer and much more structured than it had been before. This sounds like I have a major gripe with the book but honestly I don’t as once I what I found to be a problem sorted itself out I found it easier to follow what was going on and my empathy for the characters grew. So much so that I think Maggie, has been the best female protagonist out of the three books.
The words that strongly sum up Maggie would be for me resilience, persistence, determination, devotion and strength. She is just relentless in terms of her passion throughout the book. That once she makes a promise she never goes back on it and despite having suffered such trauma, suffering and brutalisation at the hands of the Germans at Auschwitz, she still wants to carry on to the bitter end and help her colleagues and friends in the Resistance network in any way shape or form that she can. It says that she spent only five months in the camp as she was captured when trying to plant bombs on a train line near Lyon and although this was a relatively short time period in terms of the overall war and how long other innocent people spent there still the effects of what she witnessed and endured are not to be under estimated.
Maggie’s burning desire to seek revenge on Dr. Mengele for all that he put young children through deserved nothing but admiration. She was like a dog with a bone. Once she had something set out in her mind she was determined to see it through to the bitter end no matter the hardship, hurt and anxiety that she would have to go through. I loved her for all of these traits and just the fact she had such a no-nonsense attitude. She always laid things on the line as they were and if she made a promise to someone as she did regarding baby Leah she would fulfil it no matter the challenges that presented themselves in the process of doing so. There was no messing around with Maggie. She wasn’t evasive or shirking away from her duties or responsibilities and having spent so long working for the Resistance Network she had built up so much strength both physically and emotionally that I really felt she was the right woman to show that love can conquer all and her inner strength and steadfastness are qualities which she had in abundance and what made me think of her as the stand out character in the series.
The Midwife’s Child was a great read and without question the best book in the series. If this proves to be the last in the series than it has ended on a high but I wouldn’t say no to another book as I think Amanda Lees writes so well about the work of women in the Resistance. She has given the women and their bravery, courage and strength a very strong voice. At times, this is a harrowing and difficult read which only further opens the readers eyes to the unnecessary atrocities committed by Hitler and his accomplices. The story that unfolds is very intense and detailed but amidst it all are rays of hope, positivity, unity and love which help in some small way to balance out of all the evil and horror that unfolds. It’s definitely one not to miss out on regardless of whether you have read the previous two books or not.
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