Fiction Pick of the Week: Midwife of Venice

The Midwife of Venice by Roberta Rich 2011

Hannah is a skilled midwife living in the Jewish ghetto in 16^th century Venice. Her husband has been captured at sea and is living as a slave in Malta. She is desperate to bring him home, but with no money, she is unable to do so. One evening, against her Rabbi’s wishes, she agrees to help a Christian woman during a difficult birth. Hoping to pay her husband’s ransom, she has been offered a great deal of money by the woman’s distraught husband. What ensues becomes a fast-paced historical thriller, where Hannah is running for her life from people who think nothing of destroying her life and the lives of her family. Great choice for historical fiction readers.