A Midwife's Song of Freedom: Oh Freedom! (Hope River Novel #4) by Patricia Harman

A Midwife’s Song of Freedom: Oh Freedom! (Hope River Novel #4) by Patricia Harman. Flying Squirrel Publishing. November 2019. pb, 478 pp.; ISBN-13: 978-1702575003.

In 1956 the Civil Rights movement is beginning to pick up steam as well as the threats from America’s Cold War with Russia.  Patience and her dear friend Bitsy share the unfolding events, both decrying their ancestral memories of slavery and freedom as well as current events that threaten the stability they have come to know.  Their work as midwives has slowed but is now gaining prominence as the new “painless” childbirth methods often are nothing but drugs and more forceful ways of helping mothers give birth such as the use of forceps to rush delivery of newborn infants.  Women are learning that childbirth may be better when occurring naturally, but the fear of things going wrong gives some expectant mothers trepidation and fear to try the natural method.

While sharing their story, someone drops off on Patience’s porch some journals of Grace Potts, a “white slave” who chronicles her realization that she is owned chattel and her journey to freedom through the Underground Railroad throughout America and into Canada.  It’s an emotionally devastating tale and some of the scenes are sure to haunt readers, but the scenes that she and Bitsy read are real and remind them of the cost of freedom that only fuels their Civil Rights protests and fervor.

However, their children have new problems for the new century.  Patience’s daughter becomes pregnant outside of marriage and her son drinks too much.  Bitsy’s son comes home from the Korean War emotionally hurting.  Both mothers have to and will learn to let their children go to a new freedom where things heal beyond parental patterns and dominance.

So what does one do when freedom is looming on the horizon?  One sings and many of the Civil Rights freedom songs are written, sung and shared by all who yearn for the change of true freedom.  Freedom began in the 19^th century but still has fulfillment to attain. Patricia Harman has deftly and ably presented that journey in a way that is readable, exciting, emotionally riveting and memorable!  Enjoy and look forward to more novels in the Hope River series – both past and those to come soon!  Recommended historical fiction books!!!

Swimming Between World by Elaine Orr

Swimming Between Worlds. Elaine Orr.  Penguin Publishing Group. Copyright 2018. pb. 416 pp.; ISBN: 9780698406384. 

Tacker is an engineering student who graduated and went to work with a notable engineering firm in Nigeria, Africa.  A man who fully embraces every thing he did and does, he wound up being fired and sent back to America.  His fault?  Getting too close to the native Nigerians, embracing their culture, innocently embracing religious and other rituals, and supposedly consorting in a physical relationship with a Nigerian.  Shades of Jim Crow extending its tentacles overseas.  Tacker comes back to his home town, embarrassed, confused and even angry about his failed career.  His family really don’t know what happened but stand by Tacker and eventually offer him management of the family’s small grocery store in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. 

While working, Tacker meets Kate Monroe, a gal is who recovering from the death of her parents and who then discovers the momentous secret of her parents’ marriage that shocks her to bits.  The trauma is so deep and harsh that she is not sure she can ever trust anyone again, and that includes Tacker who seems to have his own secrets.

The plot picks up with the entrance of an African-American, Gaines Townson.  He is accepted to work at the grocery store where he does his best to work hard and remain unnoticed.  But Gaines is part of the new wage of rebellion, willing to risk arrest and even death for trying to break the Jim Crow laws.  Tacker actually accompanies him on one of these potentially volatile scenes in which Gaines dares to sit at a whites-only luncheon counter.  On and on these scenarios progress with eventual success but also accompanied by violence and death.

How to these characters develop?  One could call this a coming-of-age novel but the characters are only coming of age with the recognition and ownership of vital truths about humans and how they treat each other.  It’s all about love, hate, loyalty and betrayal.  It’s an American historical novel which leaves as many questions as answers in the reader’s mind.

Highly recommended historical fiction!