From start to finish this was an utterly compelling read. I was captivated by the story and highly recommend it.

This is a heartbreaking read.
It is WWII in Auschwitz along with Josef Mendele. A question is presented that is not so easily passed off as black or white. Abortion is murder. However, when medical personnel are faced with a no win situation, what is right? Let mothers birth their child and immediately be gassed, or secretly abort the child in hopes the mother might survive the horrors?
This read is very disturbing reading of the complete disregard for human life as well as thought provoking.

I loved this book. Although it was sad, it held my attention from the very first page. Emilia gave everything she had to help women and babies during the war. She had to overcome the many horrors of Auschwitz to provide care to women. The things she had to endure was heart breaking.

This book was not an easy read but it was compelling. The themes addressed are harrowing but very sensitively done. I read this book in one day as it had me gripped, wanting to find out more about Emilia, Aleksy and Lena. The themes of pregnancy and birth in concentration camps is not discussed much but was definitely eye opening. This is a story about brave people doing what they can in awful circumstances. This book will stay with me.

A heartrending tale of one woman fighting for life in the darkest place in history during one of the darkest times in history, when the right life was determined by one’s religion.

Wow!
This is one amazing journey as we head back to World War II in the Auschwitz concentration camps.
It is definitely not an easy read, with incredible detail and intensity- but OH how it explains the horrors of living and dying during those times!
Emilia speaks out about her times as a midwife that have never before been shared.
These told secrets coincide on the fiftieth anniversary of the Auschwitz liberation.
It is time to let people know what occurred there all those years ago.

This novel is fascinating and emotional and it will definitely stay with me a long time.

If you enjoy historical fiction or women's fiction,this one is for you!
Thank you to @NetGalley and @Amazon Publishing.UK, @Lake Union Publishing and @Soraya Lane for this incredible ARC and allowing me to read and provide my own review.

Soraya Lane's writing has a way of pulling you into the story, even such a heartbreaking tale as this one. The Secret Midwife is a dual timeline novel with the first timeline taking place during WWII and telling the story of Emilia, who was trained as a midwife by her mother, and her work helping women at Auschwitz, where she was sent after being arrested. There she meets Aleksy, a doctor who was sent to Auschwitz after he was found helping resistance members, and they work together to try to ease the suffering all around them. The second timeline takes place in 1995 with Emilia being interviewed by a news reporter and telling her story of the atrocities she witnessed and the cruelty she survived. I have to admit that it was difficult to read at times because of the Nazi brutality and I found myself putting it down and then going back to it. There was a littlle bit of a plot twist at the end that tied the two plot lines together nicely.

I really enjoyed "The Secret Midwife." I've never read a story quite like this. The characters were compelling and such a tragic story. However, I felt like it was a bit long in places yet also could have used a bit more in others. I liked how she was telling her story to her daughter for the first time.

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC!

An outstanding novel of the Holocaust . A must read for everyone. How one person can make a difference in the lies of many regardless of the horrors going on around them. We must never forget this as it will happen again.

The Secret Midwife was beautiful, tragic, inspiring, and heartbreaking all at once. Emilia is a polish midwife, dedicated to helping women deliver their babies safely. When the Germans come to get village to patrol, she starts secretly delivering Jewish babies, and smuggling them out of the village to safety. She is caught and sent to Auschwitz. Because of her experience, she is spared, and is sent to work as a midwife/nurse in the camps. She meets Lena and Aleksy, both just as fearless and driven as Emilia, and they come up with a plan to save as many babies and woman as they possibly can without getting caught and killed. The book is written from all 3’s perspective, and is so captivating, you won’t be able to put it down, even when your heart is breaking for them.

Thank you to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for an ARC Copy in exchange for an honest review of this book.

London, 1995 - during the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, a plead is asked to find out any information about the secret midwife at Auschwitz that helped countless women during the worst time of their lives. Poland, 1942 - Emilia is a midwife who is part of the resistance, helping pregnant women who are hiding from the Germans when she is caught and sent to Auschwitz. There she is tasked with helping as a midwife, bringing hope to those who found themselves pregnant in a place where death is a common outcome.

Soraya Lane is a wonderful storyteller who pulls the readers in within the first few lines and doesn’t let go. I have come to really enjoy her stories and this one is no different. I enjoyed the dual timeline and would have loved to learn more about Emilia’s time after the war. Despite the heaviness of the story, I’m glad Emilia got her happy ending. Tears were shed during this book and my heart was heavy multiple times while reading. This is a story that absolutely must be told, and the story was wonderfully and delicately told. Highly recommend this book.

In her Author’s Notes, Soraya says the the characters of Emilia, Aleksy and Lena will stay with her for a very long time. Anyone who reads this remarkable tale will also carry these characters with them as well because they do everything they can to bring hope to those who have all but lost it.

The year is 1995 and an elderly Emilia comes across a news story on the Holocaust while watching tv, her immediate instinct is to turn the channel. She has spent most of her adult life trying not to look back on the nightmare she once lived through. Just as she goes to turn the channel, there is a mention of a midwife who tried to save many lives within the barbed wire fencing of Auschwitz.

Having been recently widowed and age getting the best of her at times, Emilia decides to tell her story for the first time. She reveals to not only the interviewer but also her daughter that she is the midwife mentioned in the story. She digs deep within her to tell her story before it’s too late.

Loosely based on actual events and people, this story will tug at your heartstrings from the very first page to the last. This is a different approach to WWII fiction than what we’ve previously seen from Soraya. I can only imagine the emotional difficulty in writing this but these stories need to be told and Soraya did just that, brilliantly!

Thanks so much to NetGalley, Amazon Publishing UK and Soraya M Lane for allowing me to read this work of art before it hits the shelves! I won’t soon forget these remarkable characters

Wow wow wow. This book blew me away! It was devastating and heartbreaking but also so powerful and hopeful. This was my first book by this author and I can’t wait to read more.

This book was incredible! It's been a long time since I have read a book that touched every emotion within me. The book will be in my top 10 reads, ever! So well written and beautiful.

I received an eARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher, for which I thank them.

“The Secret Midwife” is a historical fiction book by Soraya Lane. In this book, Emilia is a midwife in Poland before and during WWII. She is arrested and put into Auschwitz. There she continues to help deliver babies. Her story is intertwined with three others - a female tattooist, another prisoner, and a doctor. This book is told through multiple points-of-view (very nice to see that done in this book) and in two different timelines (1995 and through the early 1940s). I liked the idea of this book, but early on I thought this book would be a fictional story mainly about Stanisława Leszczyńska and while Ms. Leszczyńska was one of the inspirations for this book, the main character, Emilia, was composed of a number of people. It took me a bit of reading to realize that this wasn’t quite what I expected - not that it was bad, but it just threw me. Overall, this is a well done book. It’s obvious, again, that Ms. Lane does her research. And, again, she is thoughtful about giving the facts of the horrors of WWII concentration camps but doesn’t glamorize it or put in too much disturbing detail.

The Secret Midwife grasped my attention at the first paragraph and never let go! A powerful story of the unbelievably courageous and selfless actions of those determined to serve the women and babies of Auschwitz in the midst of unspeakably horrific circumstances and utter brutality.

I read The Secret Midwife in one sitting. It's difficult to rate a read about the Holocaust; but I'm going to give this one five stars, simply because I can't stop thinking about it. I've read a lot of WWII fiction, but hadn't stumbled across much detailing pregnancy and childbirth at Auschwitz. The jumps between timelines give some relief from the intensity of life in a concentration camp, and I appreciated learning more about that era.

An incredible and tear jerking tale from the pits of Austwitz in some of the darkest times in history.

The characters will wind their way around your heart and tug.

This will make you cry, but it is a book that I think everybody should read, as these events did happen in history and should never be forgotten.

Whilst this is fictional, the characters are based upon people who did live and breath through these dark times, especially the mid wife who risked her life to save hundreds of Jewish babies, and the doctor who tricked the Nazis into believing his village was plagued by Typhoid by making a false vaccine to show positive results.

These are some people in history who helped save the lives of countless people, and their stories could not have been told in a better way.

Thank you for a wonderful read, I will be recommending to everybody I know to read this book.

Absolutely incredible. Honestly the best book I’ve read this year. The writing is incredible, the characters are so vivid and well written and the plot was heartbreaking and beautiful and just amazing. Honestly, I cannot recommend this book enough. Go and read it now.

The very best historical fiction book written about Auschwitz concerning a midwife & a doctor. Brilliantly narrated. The story unfolds for each separately until the moment they meet. It’s emotional, heartbreaking & gut-wrenching and so compelling. You will want to keep reading , but sometimes you have to stop to process, or distract yourself. It’s harrowing, but so full of hope, courage & resilience. The best of human nature versus the absolute inhumane worst.
I received an Advanced Reader Copy from NetGalley & I am writing a voluntary honest review.