The Mountain Midwife by Laurie Alice Eakes

★★★★★

For nearly two hundred years, women in Ashley Tolliver’s family have practiced the art of midwifery in their mountain community. Now she wants to take her skills a step further, but attending medical school means abandoning those women to whom she has dedicated her life, the mountains she loves, and the awakening of her heart.

Ashley Tolliver has tended to the women of her small Appalachian community for years. As their midwife, she thinks she has seen it all. Until a young woman gives birth to a baby at Ashley’s home and is abducted just as she tries to take the dangerously bleeding woman her to the nearest hospital. Now Ashley is on a mission to find the woman and her newborn baby…before it’s too late.

Hunter McDermott is on a quest – to track down his birth mother. After receiving more media attention than he could ever want for being in the right place at the right time, he receives a mysterious phone call from a woman claiming to be his mother. Hunter seeks out the aid of the local midwife in the mountain town where the phone call originated – surely she can shed some light on his own family background.

Ashley isn’t prepared for the way Hunter’s entrance into her world affects her heart and her future. He reignites dreams of her own family she has long put aside in favor earning her medical degree and being able to do even more for her community. But is it commitment to her calling or fear of the unknown that keeps her feet firmly planted in the Appalachian soil? Or is it something more—fear of her growing feelings for Hunter – that make her hesitant to explore the world beyond the mountains?

Laurie Alice Eakes’s The Mountain Midwife ventures into small-town Appalachia with mystery, intrigue, and danger. Ashley Tolliver, a midwife with strong ties to her family history, loves serving her tight-knit community, yet longs to attend medical school and become a doctor. When Hunter McDermott crosses paths with Ashley in search of a connection to his past, both Ashley and Hunter find the secrets of the past changing their perspective of the future. A highly enjoyable read, full of well-paced action and suspense, The Mountain Midwife offers fans of contemporary fiction a perfect choice for their next book. I recommend it.

Thanks to BookLook Bloggers, I received a copy of The Mountain Midwife and the opportunity to honestly review it. I was not required to write a positive review, and all the opinions I have expressed are my own. (I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”)

About the Author

Recipient of the National Readers Choice Award, Laurie Alice Eakes is the author of nine books and a novella, with four more books and two novellas scheduled for release. She is a writing teacher and speaker and has her master’s degree in creative writing. She also writes articles on writing, including “Writing from the Heart While Writing for the Market” for The ACFW Journal. Visit her website, Facebook, and Twitter.