Fiction• Romance

Review: The Midwife by the Sea by Jo Bartlett

August 3, 2026

Synopsis:

When midwife Hope Masterson arrives in Cornwall to start her dream job by the sea, she’s ready for a fresh start and a chance to make a real difference to the lives of the women and babies she cares for.

Working between St Piran’s hospital and the community midwifery unit of Port Agnes, Hope quickly finds herself drawn into the lives of her patients and colleagues. From dramatic deliveries and joyous newborns to heartbreaking struggles with infertility, she is on hand to share in all the hopes, worries and incredible love that motherhood can bring.

But Hope is carrying a secret that could change everything – and she faces an impossible dilemma.

Should she reveal the truth and shatter the lives of those around her, or protect the fragile happiness of the family she’s only just found?

As friendships deepen, romance blooms and emotions run high, Hope must decide whether some secrets are better left untold… and what it truly means to belong.

Review:

This is a book about Nora, who was adopted and grew up in a very loving family. When she became interested in finding out more about her medical history, she felt the need to find her birth parents.
As she got closer to finding answers, she also had to decide whether permanently stepping into someone else’s life and changing it was something she really wanted to do.

I enjoyed that this book presented the moral dilemma of such a situation. There is the urge to find out where you came from, and that feeling will never truly go away. But then there is also the moment when you have to ask yourself whether you want to potentially destroy the life that someone else has built for themselves.
In this situation, there was even more pressure because Nora got to know the people around her and even became friends with them. She had to ask herself the tough question of whether her personal interests outweighed the happiness of others, and that moral dilemma came across very well. I really enjoyed that it was not presented as a simple issue and that there was no clearly right approach to such a situation.

While I appreciated many of the plot points and how they were presented, I did not always see the need to follow up on everything in the way the book chose to. Overall, it was a very emotional roller-coaster ride.

🌙 Recension: The Midwife by the Sea by Jo Bartlett
📚 Genre: Fiction, Romance
📅 Release Date: August 4, 2026
📖 Publisher: ‎Boldwood Books
📗 available in various formats – included in Kindle Unlimited
📱 Read as: Kindle
💸 I received a free copy and am voluntarily leaving a review.
📆 Pages: 298
⭐️ 4/5