GENRE: Historical Mystery
SETTING: England, 1644
NARRATION: First person
SERIES: A Midwife Mystery, #1
AUTHOR SITE: link
MY GRADE: C-
FROM PUBLISHER: It is 1644, and Parliament’s armies have risen against the King and laid siege to the city of York. Even as the city suffers at the rebels’ hands, midwife Bridget Hodgson becomes embroiled in a different sort of rebellion. One of Bridget’s friends, Esther Cooper, has been convicted of murdering her husband and sentenced to be burnt alive. Convinced that her friend is innocent, Bridget sets out to find the real killer.
Bridget joins forces with Martha Hawkins, a servant who’s far more skilled with a knife than any respectable woman ought to be. To save Esther from the stake, they must dodge rebel artillery, confront a murderous figure from Martha’s past, and capture a brutal killer who will stop at nothing to cover his tracks. The investigation takes Bridget and Martha from the homes of the city’s most powerful families to the alleyways of its poorest neighborhoods. As they delve into the life of Esther’s murdered husband, they discover that his ostentatious Puritanism hid a deeply sinister secret life, and that far too often tyranny and treason go hand in hand.
MY THOUGHTS: I found this to be very boring and it took me forever to finish because of it. Extreme boredom set in at the halfway point of a book that's only 310 pages.
Bridget is thirty years old, twice widowed, and has lost her two children. Other than that we didn't get any background on her, the main character. I didn't find her to be that likeable either. I did like her maid, Martha, but found it pointless to add in the stuff involving her brother. It just detracted from the main mystery of who poisoned Esther's husband, Stephen. It isn't anyone I suspected so I give the author credit for not making it so obvious.
There were too many characters, most of which were unnecessary, and too many murders, and I just didn't care about any of it. It wasn't interesting or suspenseful like I was hoping. I don't think Bridget is interesting enough to carry a series.
I received this from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
