I really enjoyed this story. Maggie was an interesting character that, for some reason, I connected with. Since I don't have any real reason to be able to do so, I attribut it to the quality of the story and character development. I enjoyed the story and the complexity. I'd recommend this.

I could easily have seen this having been drawn out into a much longer story or a multi-book saga.

Maggie Duncan is the only survivor of an attack on her village in Scotland. Because of this she is thought to be cursed by the superstitious people of the village where she resides after she is taken in by Hannah, the Midwife. Despite this, Maggie grows up and learns to be a gifted midwife at Hannah’s side. However, upon Hannah’s death, people revert to their superstition and don’t want Maggie to treat them.

Unable to provide for herself, Maggie sells herself into four years of indentured service for passage to America. When she arrives there she learns that she has only exchanged on set of problems for another.

I found Midwife of the Blue Ridge to be pretty engaging from the beginning. The fact that the beginning takes place in Scotland caught my interest immediately and then the fact that it was also set in Colonial America was another plus. I like Maggie, Tom, Seth and many of the other characters that populate the book.

There were some things that I have to count as negatives too though. There were elements of the story that remind me of the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. I have read the first three of the series and am not really a fan. I LOVE the time travel element and the historical element to the stories but I don’t tend to be a huge fan of the romance genre. It’s not that I don’t enjoy romance so much as I get bored with the formula:

Man and woman are attracted to each other
Man and woman can’t resist the physical attraction to each other and give in to sex, always with regret.
Tragic elements align to keep them apart.
Man and women realize how much they love each other and can overcome anything( different times, indians, crazy villians, hurricanes etc.) to be together.
It’s hard to find something really original. That was my beef with Midwife of the Blue Ridge. The romance seemed a bit formulaic to me.

Another thing that I didn’t like about was that some of the violence committed in the book is pretty graphic. I wasn’t really expecting that. I don’t have a problem with violence, necessarily, if I can understand the point in it’s being there. I couldn’t understand it in this instance though.

I also detested the villain, Julian Cavendish. I suppose that’s the point since he is the villain but he is so creepy that he reminded me a lot of Jonathan Randall from the Outlander series and I really disliked the Jonathan/Jamie storyline. I guess I was hoping that both Maggie and I would feel some sympathy for Julian at the end. She didn’t but I did. It made me like her less because she left him to a fate so horrid that I can’t imagine leaving anyone to that.

I did enjoy Midwife of the Blue Ridge, just not as much as I was expecting. I would recommend it if you enjoy historical romantic fiction. I would caution that I found some of the violence disturbing. (3/5) ( )

As a child, Maggie is the sole survivor after a murderous rampage on the village in Scotland where she lived with her family. She is found by Hannah, a medicine woman who more or less adopts her and makes her an apprentice. Hannah teaches Maggie all that she can, but when Hannah dies, Maggie is left on her own. She eventually agrees to be a bondservant for four years in exchange for passage to the New World. After her grueling boat ride across the Atlantic, Maggie lucks up when it comes time for her to be purchased. Because of her healing skills, Seth Martin buys her to tend to his family which includes three children and his ailing pregnant wife Naomi. He takes Maggie to his homestead, which is apparently around the area of Kentucky (Kenta-kee). And that's when the real trouble and heartache begins.

The book does have romance and adventure, but too much of the latter and not enough of the former, for my taste. And the adventures were quite graphic and somewhat depressing (scalpings, stabbings, shootings, etc.). I know things like that really happened in the frontier of the young America, I just don't like reading about them in such a stark light.

I really wanted to like this book, and I truly thought I would. I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it. I guess I was expecting something different than what it delivered. I kept flipping to the back, counting the pages left before the end. It was well written and interesting enough, I suppose, yet because I had pictured something else when I read the book's description, that is what I wanted to read about. So I cannot fault the author for not reading my mind before she wrote her book! I would have simply preferred more of a straightforward story with more romance and less violence.

However, my lowish rating of this book will not stop me from reading "The Tory Widow" by the same author. I think that one will be more my style. ( )

I was not overly thrilled by this story. The main character was hard to become acquainted with, since for the first several chapters, she seems more of a stranger. She does become more developed later in the tale, but by that time, there's so much going on and so many other characters to focus on that it's hard to really think of her as 'the' main character, even though the way it's written makes that pretty clear.

Some of the characterizations were fairly shallow, but many were good and interesting which did add to the ease of reading. It was very descriptive as well, which largely added to the experience, but the description did not stop at anything gory or unpleasant, so for the weak of stomach - be aware.

By the end of the story, I was starting to feel attached to many of the characters, only to have it end rather abruptly. Even the epilogue didn't tie up the loose ends. I think that would be my biggest complaint about the story - that so many elements of the story were left uncompleted.
Overall, I felt this book was average, maybe slightly above-. It wasn't one that I felt would be an absolute necessity to read again - just average. ( )

Orphaned on the fields of Culloden, Maggie treks to America to try and make a living as a midwife. Sold as a bondswoman to a frontier family in Virginia, she falls in love with a hunter, Tom. Their story is one of constant upheaval due to warring Indian tribes and interfering British bureaucracy.

I borrowed this book from a friend and while I didn't set out looking for a book comparable to the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon, I couldn't help making comparisons due to the Scottish language woven into the story, which is set at approximately the same time. Gabaldon fans will find that this story doesn't hold a candle. I found the characters hard to sympathize with and the text is thick with analogies that weigh it down too much at times. The various climactic points wrapped up a bit too neatly for my tastes. I give this historical fiction novel a 2.5 out of 5. ( )