Reviewed by Emma Crowley
The villagers of Thimblebury know that midwife Zoe Padbury loves babies and now that she’s settled at Hilltop Farm with her boyfriend Alex, they can’t resist wondering when she’s going to start a family of her own. Yet it doesn’t feel like quite the right time. Alex is so busy and Zoe has her hands full with all her new mums to look after. Still, she has hopes for the future…
But what she doesn’t expect is to walk into her cosy kitchen and find Alex’s glamorous ex-girlfriend sitting at the scrubbed pine kitchen table. Virginia claims to be helping Alex with work but as she looks Zoe up and down and offers her a perfectly manicured hand to shake, Zoe can’t ignore a shiver of foreboding. What will this mean for her and Alex?
Zoe tries to quash the pangs of jealousy that wash over her, but with Virginia around what feels like all hours of the day, she and Alex end up in a devastating argument. And when she receives some news that changes everything, she doesn’t know if she can share her troubles… Can they find their way back to each other? Or will these storm clouds break their bond forever?
Many thanks to Bookouture via NetGalley for my copy of Storm Clouds for the Village Midwife to review and to Sharon for having my review on the blog.
Storm Clouds Ahead for the Village Midwife is the fourth in The Village Midwife series by Tilly Tennant. Set in the beautiful fictional village of Thimblebury in the Lake District, I feel that at this stage I have become very familiar with the characters, setting and plot which has been ongoing since book one. Each book more or less follows on from where the previous instalment left off but never fear for readers new to the series the author has written it in such a way that you won’t be confused as to what is going or feel as if you have missed out. This book was the one so far in the series where we really got inside the main character Zoe’s head. The storm clouds of the title and the mention of an ex-girlfriend in the blurb of her partner Alex gave me the impression that this would be a story typical of the genre. One that I would enjoy but perhaps wouldn’t be the most memorable out of the endless books that I enjoying reading in women’s fiction. I couldn’t have been more wrong but in a good way.
I fully expected a bit of angst as Zoe has to battle for Alex’s affections as his ex Virginia makes a reappearance. In fact with every turn of the page I was waiting for this to happen and it doesn’t materialise until well over halfway through the book. Instead, and rightfully so as Zoe’s own personal problems are starting to manifest themselves and in turn form the main focus of the book and all I can say is bravo to Tilly Tennant for tackling a subject that seems taboo in women’s fiction or at least it has in the books that I have read in the last several years. Ok, the subject may be mentioned in brief passing but not the detail that women readers want and need to hear but in this engaging, informative and thoughtful story we get an in-depth look as to what is going on with Zoe and how she decides to deal with things when some significant news comes her way that may very well affect the trajectory of the life she had planned with Alex.
What one earth am I talking about you may ask? Well I will remain elusive as to specifics so as not to ruin anyone’s enjoyment of the story but suffice to say it’s something at one time or another we can all relate to. Zoe is working away at her job as village midwife for Thimblebury and the surrounding areas and she has really found her footing and established herself as a person always there for the women in her care. She is kind, considerate, compassionate, helpful and supportive. All the qualities that one needs due to the nature of her job. When we reconnect with Zoe in chapter one she is as busy as ever tending to the needs of the women of the village and she always seems to juggling a balancing act between her home and work life. She has recently moved in with boyfriend Alex and his daughter Billie and her new baby Louisa at Hilltop Farm and things are going relatively well. Alex is preoccupied trying to get his glamping business off the ground and to this effect I felt he was a bit oblivious with what begins to develop with Zoe. Or else he noticed things and choose to bury his head in the sand as he perhaps didn’t want to confront a new reality. As for Billie she is starting to melt a little bit compared to the previous books but she is caught up in looking after Louisa and trying to do the right thing by her which I fully understand given the complications of her situation.
To all intents and purposes Zoe was dealing with a big issue on her own and I wished that she had a female ally that she could confined in. Yes, of course female characters did feature such as Corrine and Ottilie but they had their own problems to deal with and Zoe was also being very stubborn about things. When she begins to develop symptoms that she has never felt before and said problems began to affect both her work and home life Zoe attempts to dismiss things as most often do. I didn’t blame her for this at all initially but the further things went she really frustrated me and I found myself turning against her as a character which given she was the main female protagonist I was loathe to do. But that’s what happened simply because of her inability to open up to someone close to her and say what she was going through especially when confirmation was given to her. Trust the ones you love that they will do the right thing by you. Don’t feel as if you have to navigate the storm clouds on your own. So what if others are going through stuff as well. You’ve helped everybody in the past and now is the time for you to step back and embrace help when it is offered. Although no one could offer help if Zoe didn’t come straight out and say what was going on.
I wanted to reach into the pages of the book and give her a good shake and say take some of your own advice that you offer to the women you care for. Why should Zoe go through her struggles in secret? Her personality was changing and she was now more unpredictable, snappy, vulnerable and full of uncertainty. I’m giving the impression that the story was meandering along the lines of doom and gloom, but it wasn’t at all. There was still the funny stories and anecdotes here as had been present in previous books and it was great catching up with old familiar characters as well as meeting new patients that Zoe encounters. It’s just the issues bravely being explored and developed throughout the book, the way and manner in which Zoe dealt with them really irked me.
As for the storyline with Alex and an incident at the glamping site which led to the introduction of Virginia I was expecting it at some stage given the details in the blurb but honestly I felt the book would have been just fine with out it. It only added another layer of anxiety for Zoe to deal with and I felt she had enough going on as it was. The carefully constructed new life and future she had planned for herself and Alex seemed to be disintegrating before her eyes. Her long-held hopes and dreams which she harbours close to her chest may never come to fruition but does she want them to when she steps back and really thinks about things? This was definitely the most emotional, heartfelt and in depth book so far in the series and the ending certainly left room for another book to follow which I hope does happen. All in all another enjoyable read in the series that will give readers a lot more than they bargained for but the issues are ones that women can identify with and gain some understanding from.
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