9780062867711
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Once a Midwife audiobook

  • By: Patricia Harman
  • Narrator: Tavia Gilbert
  • Category: Family Life, Fiction
  • Length: 11 hours 10 minutes
  • Publisher: HarperAudio
  • Publish date: November 06, 2018
  • Language: English
  • (1365 ratings)
(1365 ratings)
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Once a Midwife Audiobook Summary

Welcome back to Hope River in New York Times bestselling author Patricia Harman’s newest novel as midwife Patience Hester, along with her family and friends, face the challenges of the home front during World War II.

The women of Hope River trust midwife Patience Hester, whose skill in delivering babies is known for miles around. But though the Great Depression is behind them, troubles are not, for Europe is at war…and it can only be a matter of time before the U.S. enters the fray.

And while some are eager to join the fight, Patience’s husband, Daniel, is not. Daniel is a patriot–but he saw too much bloodshed during the First World War, and has vowed never to take up arms again.

His stance leaves Patience and their four children vulnerable–to the neighbors who might judge them, and to the government, who imprison Daniel for his beliefs.

Patience must support their family and fight for her husband’s release despite her own misgivings. And with need greater than ever, she must also keep her practice running during this tumultuous time…relying on generous friends, like Bitsy, who has returned to Hope River, stalwart neighbors, and her own indomitable strength to see them all through.

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Once a Midwife Audiobook Narrator

Tavia Gilbert is the narrator of Once a Midwife audiobook that was written by Patricia Harman

Patricia Harman, CNM, got her start as a lay midwife on rural communes and went on to become a nurse-midwife on the faculties of Ohio State University, Case Western Reserve University, and West Virginia University. She is the author of two acclaimed memoirs and three novels: the bestselling The Midwife of Hope River, The Reluctant Midwife and The Runaway Midwife. She has three sons and lives near Morgantown, West Virginia.

About the Author(s) of Once a Midwife

Patricia Harman is the author of Once a Midwife

Once a Midwife Full Details

Narrator Tavia Gilbert
Length 11 hours 10 minutes
Author Patricia Harman
Category
Publisher HarperAudio
Release date November 06, 2018
ISBN 9780062867711

Subjects

The publisher of the Once a Midwife is HarperAudio. includes the following subjects: The BISAC Subject Code is Family Life, Fiction

Additional info

The publisher of the Once a Midwife is HarperAudio. The imprint is HarperAudio. It is supplied by HarperAudio. The ISBN-13 is 9780062867711.

Global Availability

This book is only available in the United States.

Goodreads Reviews

Dorine

January 24, 2020

Rated 4.5 - ONCE A MIDWIFE continues Patience Hester’s life as a midwife, as well as wife and mother in rural West Virginia, when America fought for freedom in WWII. So many interesting things happen to this family in an era that might be forgotten without novels such as this. I loved reading about rolling bandages for the Red Cross as much as learning to square dance.Author Patricia Harman makes it all come alive with people’s hearts, prayer, and unforgettable settings. I love the way Harman sets a scene. All the characters have their thoughts on the Pearl Harbor tragedy, and even though they’re distant from where it occurred, the way people reacted in that time period is so realistic. We tend to forget what social media has done to how we face news. Looking back is so fascinating. And the midwife focus is so good.Patience’s veteran husband, Dan, becomes a pacifist during the draft and refuses to sign up. This adds good tension from all sides of the story. How his family looks at him, and how the community responds, is familiar and chilling at the same time. Where did our freedom to choose go? It made me angry for his sake, but I felt his wife’s and family’s quandary as well.There are moments of heartbreak and joy in this family’s story, but mostly it’s about Patience and her ability to endure everything that’s thrown at her with eventual love and understanding. Her struggles are realistic and heartfelt.While reading this book, I finally realized how close to home this war came to us. I get why my grandparents taught me to stock a pantry. The Great Depression and WWII put many stressors on families. Just the black-out nights had to be terrifying for the children, let alone their fear of starvation and so many other things.My only criticism is that the book is both too long and too short. When it ended – I wanted more, even though the end was satisfying. But yet again, sometimes while reading, I wanted less. That’s because we experience the characters’ lives through Patience Hester’s point-of-view, then she rehashes a day’s event in a journal entry.That sometimes felt like duplication and a good place to trim the book’s page-length, even though those journal entries gave me insight into Patience’s hope and fear. After all, it took me over a month to read this book, because it wasn’t easy to read cover-to-cover in one sitting. I had to take breaks with faster-reading books in-between. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t enjoy it, because I most certainly did – it’s just the type of book that I need to read in portions.That also doesn’t mean that I didn’t enjoy the detail, quite the contrary – I relished it. It’s just that some of the repetition seemed to slow the pacing that my reader anxiety wanted to speed up. I’m not quite as patient as Patience.Even with that minor quibble, I could read a steady diet of Patricia Harman’s novels. They truly relax me and take me down-home to a place and people I love in one of my favorite places to vacation, West Virginia.Even though this is the third book in the HOPE RIVER series, I feel strongly that new readers can settle into it fairly easy. I read and enjoyed the first book, THE MIDWIFE OF HOPE RIVER., but skipped the second one. This novel jogged my memory enough about what happened in the first book, even though it has been five years since I read it.Because Romance Junkies is a romance review site, I need to make a point that this book isn’t Historical Romance, but classified better as Historical Fiction with romance elements. The main couple in the book are a man and wife who love one another but struggle throughout this book with their differing views on WWII. Their struggles are just like any couple’s, giving beautiful insight into what it means to truly love someone until death do you part. And yes, there is a HEA, so you don’t have to fear for your heart.Page 115 made me smile when Patience talked about going through her seed catalogs when the February winter blues got to her. I had just been doing the very same thing an hour before I read that. It’s nice to know some things haven’t changed with progress and the digital age. At least for some of us.What an endeavor! After 487 pages, I realized what a huge accomplishment this book is for the author. Much of it contains a daily journal entry by Patience, in addition to the myriad of things that happened to her and her family and friends. That’s a lot of ideas, filled with intricate historical detail that makes this book so special.If you want to step back in time with the brave spirit of this country’s pioneers, this book will give you that and more. Even though it was the 1940s, and more modern than actual pioneer days, they still did much of everything for themselves in rural America when wartime rationed most purchases. If you couldn’t make it or grow it, you did without.A good story, ONCE A MIDWIFE takes you back to a wholesome America that struggled, while reminding you of the value of a life well-lived. Fans of the HOPE RIVER series will enjoy reconnecting with characters they’ve loved. For those who love Christmas stories, this novel is rich with detail about what this holiday was like in the 1940s.Review by Dorine, courtesy of Romance Junkies. Print copy provided by the author for an honest review.

Asheley T.

October 19, 2019

The Hope River Series continues to be one of my favorites and I have waited impatiently for this third installment for what feels like ages. When I received a review copy from the publisher, I was THRILLED because I wanted to see how Patience and Daniel, Becky and Isaac were doing in Union County, West Virginia. Once A Midwife picks up in November 1941, which is about 5-6 years after The Reluctant Midwife. What will eventually be known as World War II is brewing and everyone in the community is talking about it. Most are eager for the US to become involved and help rid the world of tyranny and then there is Daniel Hester, Patience's husband. Daniel served in World War I and while he was a hero, the things that he saw and did left an impression on him that he cannot shake. He has sworn that he will never participate in war again and he absolutely means this. The community forms clubs and groups dedicated to patriotic service but Daniels declines any participation at all. This of course makes people talk and also unfortunately causes friction in his otherwise happy marriage. When Daniel refuses to register for the draft, the law becomes involved and soon Daniel's wife and children begin paying for his unpopular beliefs. And then Daniel goes to prison.I won't beat around the bush here: Once A Midwife was much harder for me to read the the previous two books in this series. This one doesn't have the friends-helping-friends vibe that I loved from the two earlier books set during the Great Depression, where the community had to band together or go without and starve. In this book, there was quite a bit of dissension, disagreement, and ill treatment of people with different beliefs and politics, and because Daniel and Patience were on the receiving end of that, it was tough for me to read. I love these two. I've followed them across two books previous to this one and over more than a decade of trials, tribulations, and very happy times. So to see them suffer over anything at this point makes me hurt, regardless of belief and politics. HOWEVER, I had honestly never heard of the term "conscientious objector" before. So to learn that is what Daniel technically is fascinated me. ONCE AGAIN, Patricia Harman gave me this and a ton of other things to learn all about while I was reading. (I love that this series introduces me to parts of history that I otherwise didn't know.) For example, I had also never heard of the Double V campaign. As far as birthing and midwifery, which has played a large role in the first two books: Patience is still a midwife, but she is practicing so very little now. Perhaps this is because people are not wanting to use her services because of her husband's beliefs or perhaps people have moved on to preferring hospitals over midwifery services at this point in history. Either way, there are only a few birthing scenes in this book. Drastically fewer than in the previous books and perhaps this is why the book is titled what it is. It wouldn't be a Hope River book without tackling a few other pertinent issues of the time. In particular, I enjoyed the glimpse of how people in this place, during this time, viewed interracial couples and mixed race children. I love these characters SO MUCH and I love this little close-knit community. I so, so appreciate the continued peek into their lives, even as history has moved from the Great Depression into the World War II-era. But I'm hoping for another installment after this one. Even though this book does end on a good note, I would love to spend more time with Daniel and Patience under less stressful, more happy circumstances. And I would love to spend some more time with Isaac and Becky, who less page time here than I had hoped for. (I am thankful for Bitsy Proudfoot's space on the page. Love her!)Like the others, this book can certainly stand alone. But I would highly recommend that readers start at the beginning of this series to see Daniel and Patience in their true element, when they are most themselves and happy, so they'll fully understand why this period of their lives is so difficult for them and so they'll know all of the colorful cast of characters as well as I do. They are all so wonderful. GOOD GOLLY this is one of my favorite series. I know I keep saying that in each review, on every media platform where I review and talk about these books. This one isn't my very favorite of the series, but that's because I love the Depression-era Union County community spirit so much and because I generally like reading about World War II less than the Depression. Either way, this is good stuff right here and I want more please!Audiobook Notes: In the first book, which was told from Patience's point-of-view, there was a different narrator (Anne Wittman). In this installment, Tavia Gilbert narrates. She does a good job and I enjoyed the audiobook very much, but I always wonder why narrators are switched mid-series when the POV's remain the same. If I could offer one critique, I would say that the voice used for Bitsy Proudfoot threw me off every time Bitsy spoke. Her character just doesn't strike me as loud or brash as she was portrayed in this audiobook, so every time she spoke, it pulled me out of the story until her scenes were finished. Overall, I did enjoy this audio tremendously and I will certainly listen again with future rereads. It was totally worth the credit that I spent on it and I would recommend it to others that are interested. Title: Once A Midwife by Patricia HarmanSeries: Hope River #3Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert Publisher: HarperAudioLength: 11 hours, 10 minutes, UnabridgedNote: Since I have audiobooks for the previous two books in this series and the audiobook is already published at the time of my blog tour review post, I purchased my own audiobook copy of this book with my own money from Audible so I could alternate listening and reading my print copy, as I have previously done with other titles in this series. I received a paperback finished copy of this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. I purchased an audiobook copy of this book with my own money from Audible, Inc. Receipt of the complimentary copy does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. Thank you, William Morrow Books!Find this review and more like it on my blog, Into the Hall of Books!

Sharon

September 09, 2018

During the war years 1940-1945 Patience Hester shares her experiences of midwifery, mother, wife and homemaker in the Hope river area.Her husband Daniel, takes a stand for his beliefs.I won this Free book though Goodreads First-Reads.Thankyou Goodreads for sending me this heartwarming book.

Carol

September 03, 2018

I wept so many times in this book; for joy and for heartache. People's lives are hard and become much harder after our country's entry into World War II. There's rationing and a lack of strong young men to do manual labor and to help raise their families. Daniel is a pacifist; he's been through the Great War and seen the horrors and declines to register for the draft. His wife Patience is a midwife with a past as an activist. Their beliefs are both strong and test their marriage. This wonderful book takes us back to a time when family members had chores and worked hard but also enjoyed a much fuller life than most of us do now. A lifesyle that strengthens family bonds. It wasn't always easy; it wasn't always fair but it was a full life. I'm left with a renewed hope and love for this world of ours.Thank you to Goodreads for a copy for my review.

Thelma

February 12, 2019

I received this book in a goodreads giveaway. I really enjoyed this story. The wartime drama and the beautiful stories of life and birth. This is the first book I have read by this author but I will probably read more of her work.

Jill

May 25, 2020

I enjoyed this, the 3rd book in the "Hope River" trilogy. This one brings us up to WW2 and how it has impacted the characters that we came to know in the first 2 books. Light, easy reading, well researched with interesting and believeable characters.

Joyce

March 20, 2019

Wonderful, wonderful read. The writer places the reader into the story in a way that the reader feels as though she is right there with the characters. Very enlightening presentation of that time in our history.

Regina

January 10, 2019

Hope River series#1 The Midwife of Hope River#2 The Reluctant Midwife#3 Once a Midwife

Sue

December 14, 2018

This novel is about a midwife in Hope River, West Virginia during WWII. It is book 3 in the Hope River series and can be read as a stand alone with minimal confusion. However, there were a few places in the book that I wished I had read the series in order so I plan to read the first two books to answer my questions.Patience is a midwife in a small town. She lives there with her husband Daniel, a veterinarian, and their 4 children. She is well known as a midwife in the area and the women trust her to deliver their babies. When World War II starts, life in their small town changes. War becomes the main topic of conversation and everyone is willing to make sacrifices to show their patriotism. Even though most of the local men are willing to sign up for the military to go fight, Patience's husband is just the opposite. He had seen bloodshed during the first world war and vowed to never kill again. The people in the area - many of them his friends - judge him to be a coward but he stands his ground even to the point of being imprisoned by the US government for his pacifist beliefs. Can Patience continue to support her husband even though she doesn't understand him? Can she keep her family and their farm intact during this tumultuous time in their community?I enjoyed reading about Patience and her family and plan to read the first two books. I thought that this book was too long and would been more effective at a shorter length but I did find it interesting to read about delivering babies at home during this time period.Thanks to the publisher for a copy of this book to read and review. All opinions are my own.

Kathleen

November 01, 2018

I admit to being a Harman fan and that I was very much looking forward to this latest installment (but it's fine as a standalone) with Patience, the midwife in Hope River, a tough town in West Virginia. Patience copes with more than babies over the course of the 1941-1942. Her husband Daniel, the town veterinarian, is a pacifist who served in WWI and now refuses to register for the draft. If there's a weak spot in this novel its that a lighter hand (and on the rise of Hitler where it's clear that Harman is trying to draw some parallels) would have made the impact larger as Patience and their children cope with the ramification of his decisions. A lot happens over the year, and one of the best things is that Bitsy, Patience's friend, comes back to town, bringing her ward Will with her and integration begins in town. You'll meet some of the women Patience delivers, a good Sheriff, and a host of others. Thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC. Well written and thoughtful about the issues facing many during times of war.

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