A PLACE CALLED TRINITY

Well-meaning but meandering story of a 19th-century midwife.

Martha Cade has delivered many babies into the world, but she’s worried that folks might turn to the new doctor who’s just arrived in the little Pennsylvania town of Trinity. And she’s worried about her wayward daughter Victoria, who ran away with a traveling theater troupe. Martha had cherished the hope that Victoria would follow in her footsteps and become a midwife, too. But Martha soldiers on, strengthened by her faith in God, family, and community. The warmhearted midwife is kindness personified, sharing her homespun wisdom with one and all, and riding for miles to tend her patients. As life goes on, Martha is pleased to see that her former beau Thomas Dillon is nearly untouched by the passing years. His hair is as black and thick as ever, and he’s still a strapping, sexy man who catches every woman’s eye. Now a widower and also mayor of Trinity, he’s oh-so-eligible. But Martha, like her biblical namesake, has lots of work to do and little time for romantic foolishness. She adopts a wounded bird and names it Bird. She takes in a homeless boy and names him Boy. Life goes on. There’s always something happening, even in a little town like Trinity. Why, pranksters have somehow put the doctor’s carriage up on a roof! Looks like the naughty boys at the Hampton Academy are up to their tricks again. Can’t the Reverend Hampton control those young snippersnappers? And his Academy isn’t what it seems. When Martha finds out that the reverend, a former prison chaplain, is actually teaching the boys to steal, he and his charges escape on rafts. Then Thomas takes Martha to his bosom once more. And wayward daughter Victoria even comes home.

Awkwardly written, full of pious speechifying and annoying folksiness.