Fair Play

Fair Play by Deeanne Gist
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Dr. Billy Jack Tate hung up a shingle in Chicago in 1893 and waited on patients to flock to the door. Unfortunately, 30 year old Billy Jack was a lady doctor in a man's world. So, when one of the chief executives of the Chicago World's Fair came to the city and ask her to fill in at the Woman's Building infirmary, Billy was ecstatic! Her first patient of the day is none other than Texas Ranger Hunter Scott, appointed as a Columbian Guard at the fair, who is dismayed at being treated by the likes of a female. But after Scott heals from his discomfort, the two find themselves thrown together in an attempt to rescue an abandoned baby, save a poor, young boy from prison, and build a safe, new playground in a bad section of town near Hull House.

Humor mixed in with history strikes the right note in this charming, inspirational novel.

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The Midwife

Call The Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times by Jennifer Worth
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Jennifer Worth, a young midwife in London's East End slums, writes about her true life experiences - the joy of birth, loss of life, and all the everyday experiences with everyday, down-to-earth people. Trained as a nurse and a midwife, Jenny came to reside at Nonnatus House, a Convent next to a bomb site. The streets were full of children - no one owned a car on the back streets so they were safe to play in. Jenny grew to love the hard-working Sisters at Nonnatus and her patients, mostly very poor and living in terrible conditions.

After seeing Call the Midwife, a DVD that was in our library, I had to read the book. Usually, it's the reversal. I loved the first book as I did the movie and am looking forward to reading the second in the series. Being born in the baby-boom age of 1960, and only 15 years after World War ll ended, I see similarities between the London East End docks and the hills of Appalachia.

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