This book was my first ARC and i loved everything about it. It is supposed to be a sequel to The Midwife of Auschwitz, but can be read as a standalone.I like that it is set during the Cold War, for i had never read a book during that period. More importantly though, it will make you feel a range of emotions from the pain and confusion of adoption to the happiness of Olivia winning her competitions and anger at the unjust system. Overall, highly recommend

A midwife during the war saw many babies ripped from their mothers' arms, so she decided to tatoo the mother's number in the armpit of babies, so maybe they could be reunited after the war.

Author Anna Stuart examines separation and reunification in this installment of the Midwife series.

This time she whisks us back in time to Berlin and the aftermath of WW2. With regards to historical fiction, little focus has been given to the geopolitical turmoil Europe found itself in as boundaries were moved and history was rewritten. Stuart’s focus on this benchmark in history is a welcome shift. We catch up again with Auschwitz midwife, Ester Pasternak, and see how courage and determination allow her to deal with being separated from her new baby and give her a laser sharp focus on reuniting with her one day.

After giving birth in Auschwitz, Ester knows that she can’t hide her little Pippa from the Nazis, so she does the only thing she can do … she tattoos her own number into Pippa’s armpit hoping that one day they’ll find their way back to each other.

Reuniting with the other half of 58031 brings Ester hope and is her driving purpose to stay alive.

Paralleling the above storyline, is that of Kirsten, Olivia, Hans and Dieter in 1961. Some of them also experience the strength of family and work to overcome the negative forces that try to separate them from all they’ve ever known. For one, her drive to feel worthy and find her place almost pushes her further away from her ‘power’ and it takes one woman with courage and determination to give her a feeling of unity and belonging. For another, he risks his life as an instrument of reunification.

In scaffolding these two themes, Stuart reminds readers of the division within Berlin, within families and within the sports community. The resulting camps of the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ arose from drawing lines, physical or political, and affected the lives of those innocently ensnared. She works to uncover how each reacted to and lived with separation and how dreams of reunification gave each the strength to live another day.

While many struggled with the history lesson Stuart presented to aid us in our understanding of her characters and their outlooks, I reveled in a chance to learn more about Stalinstadt, Dynamo, Bernauerstrasse, Checkpoint Charlie, Operation Rose, The Tokyo Olympics, and The Berlin Wall.

This was another wonderful book by a trusted historical fiction author. If you love historical fiction, you must allow Ester, Olivia, Kirsten, Pippa, Hans and Dieter show you how separation and reunification shaped their life.


I was gifted this copy by Bookouture and NetGalley and was under no obligation to provide a review.

Firstly I would like to thank netgalley and Bookoutune and the fantastic author Anna stuart for a early copy of her book.

This book starts in Auschwitz,A Midwife gives birth to a baby in the death camp Auschwitz. Her name is Ester her baby is taken from her and she gives her a tattoo with a number under her armpit if she survives she could trace her.years later she doesnt find her she had 2 sons and a daughter she brought up as her own Olivia who lost her parents in the death camp...she tells Olivia she has a sister she named Pippa,Olivia is determined to find her that's when the search begins again...Will she find her?I enjoyed the storyline for me there was to much politics so my rating is 3.5 rounded to 4...looking forward to reading more of her books.

This book will be reviewed on goodreads and Amazon uk.

Heartwarming, triumphant, and hard to put down. Not heartbreaking at all. And while I enjoyed it, this story is less about the Midwife of Berlin than about her daughters.

Although this book has a brief prologue that begins in Auschwitz, Christmas Day 1943, it's actually about the aftermath of World War II. We meet Ester as she has given birth only to have her daughter snatched away by an SS guard. This is the story of that daughter, Pippa/Kirsten, and her adopted daughter, Olivia, another Auschwitz baby beginning in 1961. The complexities of adoption, both good & bad, weave their way throughout the novel.

The bigger story is of living in a divided Germany and the Berlin Wall, how it quite literally divided families overnight. The depth of research done by the author is impressive and the reader can feel the anguish & despair of Berliners on both sides. Olivia's experiences as a top East German athlete give the reader special insights into their training & expectations for the Tokyo Olympics.

I can vividly remember my visit to West Berlin in 1967 and seeing the Wall with its guard towers. With fascism on the rise again, this novel couldn't be more important. Just as I was shocked when the Wall came down in 1989, I am shocked to see fascist ideas being touted once more. We can't let history repeat itself with devastating consequences. I need to remember Ester's mantra, "Love wins" against tyranny and it always has. You won't want to miss this pulse-pounding, heartwrenching tale of the importance of family, blood ties or not.

Many thanks to NetGalley & Bookouture for the digital ARC. All opinions and the review are my own.

At Auschwitz, when a baby was born, they were grabbed from the mother and given away. But, Ester, the midwife, was smart enough to tattoo the number of each mother into their baby’s armpit so they could find their child if and when they escaped from the camp.

This story is about Kirsten, one of the babies born in Auschwitz, and Ester, the midwife and mother of Pippa, Olivia, Pippa, and their loved ones. The story takes place when the war is over and everyone is trying to move on and find their lost loved ones.

This book captured my heart. It was heartbreaking, yet hopeful. I recommend this book to anyone who loves historical fiction and rate it 4 stars. Thank you, NetGalley and Bookouture for the ARC. This is due to be published on September 13, 2023.

Outstanding. I'll be sorry to not have it to read tonight, but couldn't put the book down! I was fully immersed in this from the start… fascinating!

An absolutely heart-wrenching story into which the author has cleverly weaved strands of hope.

#NoSpoilers
Filled with rich characters - Ester, Olivia, Kirsten, Pippa, Hans and Dieter - that are so well drawn I immediately cared about them all. I raced through this book and their hard-fought post-war journey. The story of their lives grabbed me from the first paragraph and didn’t let go until the last line of the fabulous ending.

Anna Stuart is fast becoming my favourite WW2 author.

A cracker of a story.
Highly recommend.