You know those books where it takes you a few days to really come to an opinion about? 
 For me, this was one of those books. A good 36 hours later and I'm still not sure how much I liked this book. Maybe that will become a bit clearer as I write. 
 The basic idea: 
 The life and battle of a young midwife In Nova Scotia during (mainly) WWI. She fights with the prejudices of her small town, the know-it-all new doctor who seems to want to take away the power of birth from the women, and a husband who is a little... less than kind. 
 Dora Rare lives in one of those small, isolated towns where everyone seems to know everything. Also, it's a very superstitious place, where the people put their expectations on omens and their main belief in Miss Babineau's (the old Acadian midwife)poultices and home remedies. A town where the people who are born usually stay and anyone from outside is regarded with distrust or contempt. 
 If nothing else, the setting was richly described and the people all had character. Not very pleasant characters all, I'll admit, but characters nonetheless. 
 Especially likeable where the women from away. Three (or four?) women from Newfoundland who were brought back as wives by some of the men from the Bay when there weren't enough born in the town. These women were pleasant, firey, and fantastic characters. Easily my favourite of the bunch. 
 As for Dora, the main character, she was a bit harder to pin an opinion on. I liked her, at times, but at others she really frustrated me. Some of her decisions struck me as unbelievably stupid and her reactions to things just drove me nuts. 
 The real thing that made this book a bit difficult to swallow, was the immense evil of Dr. Thomas. Now, I'm all for homebirths. I love the idea of natural, peaceful births in the women's chosen environment. However, sometimes her chosen environment is at the hospital in the hands of an OB and that's okay. So, yes, all of the OB bashing got irritating after a while. 
 It wasn't a bad book, by any means, but there were certain issues it just beat upon and beat upon and then there were other things that just felt thrown in for the fun of it. All in all, it felt a bit messy and too much.