Guest Post - The Gossips' Choice by Sara Read

“Call The Midwife for the 17th Century”

Lucie Smith is a respected midwife who is married to Jacob, the town apothecary. They live happily together at the shop with the sign of the Three Doves. But sixteen-sixty-five proves a troublesome year for the couple. Lucie is called to a birth at the local Manor House and Jacob objects to her involvement with their former opponents in the English Civil Wars. Their only-surviving son Simon flees plague-ridden London for his country hometown, only to argue with his father. Lucie also has to manage her husband’s fury at the news of their loyal housemaid’s unplanned pregnancy and its repercussions.

The year draws to a close with the first-ever accusation of malpractice against Lucie, which could see her lose her midwifery licence, or even face ex-communication.

Dr Sara Read is a lecturer in English at Loughborough University. Her research is in the cultural representations of women, bodies and health in the early modern era.

She has published widely in this area with her first book Menstruation and the Female Body in Early Modern England being published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2013.

She is a member of the organising committee of the Women's Studies Group, 1558-1837 and recently co-edited a special collection produced to celebrate the group's 30th anniversary.

She is also the co-editor of the popular Early Modern Medicine blog. With founding editor Dr Jennifer Evans, Sara wrote a book about health and disease in this era Maladies and Medicine: Exploring Health and Healing, 1540-1740 (Pen and Sword 2017).

Sara regularly writes for history magazines such as Discover Your Ancestors and History Today. In 2017 she published an article 'My Ancestor was a Midwife' tracing the history of the midwifery profession for Who Do You Think You Are? magazine in 2017. She has appeared on BBC Radio 3's Freethinking programme and is often to be heard on BBC Radio Leicester and BBC Radio WM.

Follow Sara on Twitter @saralread

Comments

Guest Post from Author Samantha Tonge on Her New Novella

How to Get Hitched in Ten Days is my first novella and the story just flew onto the page. It is a tale of friendship, unrequited love and about turning around the challenges that occasionally strike us all as we go through life. Mikey helps the boyfriend of his best friend and flat mate, Jasmine, turn around a disastrous Valentine’s Day proposal. Early reviews are coming in and I am thrilled that many readers are reacting to Mikey in the way I intended – they all love him and wish he was part of their lives. As one reviewer, Coffeeholic Bookworm says: “ I want some Mikey in my life! Mikey isn’t your typical hero. He’s soft, fluffy, sensitive and yummy. His friendship with Jasmine was admirable. He’s a keeper ” Do you have a best friend? Someone you can turn to in your hour of need? I think I created this character because, apart from my lovely husband, I don’t. And sometimes life gets difficult. You don’t necessarily want to burden your family or partner with

Need A Little Time by Adam Eccles, A Review

Sometimes, the strangest things can happen, right on your doorstep. When you find out your best friend and business partner is secretly sleeping with your wife, it may be time to move on.... From your job and your marriage.... Which is precisely what happened to Jamie Newgent. A change of lifestyle is what’s needed, and a bachelor pad on the fourth floor of a jutting tower provides a new home, a fresh start, and a new chapter in his life. Little does he know of the weird and wonderful journey he’s about to take, or the effects a temporal rift has on the building plumbing and his troublesome toaster. He’s living in the middle of an anomaly sandwich, with a retro woman upstairs, and a feisty hippy downstairs. But will either of them become anything more than friends? And, If it came down to it, would he be able to make the ultimate sacrifice to save a life: Could he go back to an era before the internet and smartphones? This story was a great little adventure that didn't cause me tre

Thinkerbeat Guest Post

Welcome to the Thinkerbeat Anthology Interview Q: What inspired you to start publishing? A: I wrote my first story when I was really young. I used to sit with a typewriter and clunk away at the keys for hours. I’d make a lot of mistakes, but I kept trying. Later, I started sending stories out for publication. I got a lot of rejections, just like everyone does. In college I studied the music business and learned about managing talent. I also played around with the idea of becoming a computer programmer, but my creative side won out and I spent a number of years working in the music business. Down the road, I got an offer to write a children’s book for a publisher. I thought, well, 500 words, how hard can that be? It took me months to finish it. You spend more time describing the illustrations on the page than you do putting words on the page. The staff editor was never happy and we disagreed on a lot of things. But I learned from him. I also kept in mind that if I didn’

Suz Korb

Search This Blog