MIDWIFE OF NORMANDY

In 17th-century France, a Huguenot family fights for their livelihood—and their lives—under the repressive reign of King Louis XIV.

Clare Dupres comes from a long line of midwives. Proud of her expertise, she intends to pass it and its secrets on to her daughter, Lucina. Although Clare is in love with her impulsive cousin Pierre Dupres, she eventually marries his older, steadier brother, Jacques, who inherits the lucrative family business, which deals in designer silk fabric. All is going well until the tide begins to turn against the Huguenots in France; the Edict of Nantes had established a kind of truce between this Protestant sect and the Catholic Church, but the new monarch, King Louis XIV, is determined to stamp out what he sees as its heresy. Eventually, it becomes very dangerous to be a Huguenot, and Clare plans her family’s escape to England, where Pierre is marrying into a rich family and has a home waiting for them. As they are pursued by a contingent of soldiers led by the brutish and lecherous Capitaine Robert Souchard, it looks very bad for the Dupres. However, Clare is indomitable, and she has more than one trick up her sleeve. After several hairbreadth escapes, the story proceeds to a rip-roaring conclusion as an armed merchant ship from England pushes off from the pier in Dieppe. Over the course of this novel, Penfield shows a talent for storytelling and a clear knack for drama, although some may feel that it tips into melodrama at times (or sappiness, as in scenes featuring the cutesy Jean-Pierre Dupres, Clare and Jacques’ young son). She also delivers a truly nasty young villain in the maidservant Giselle—a lazy and crafty young woman who has a desire to betray the Dupres, who’ve reluctantly taken her in—and offers a wonderfully drawn pious lech in Père Benedict.

Penfield starts the series off well in this installment, and later volumes may be just as rewarding.