Not since Anna Diamant's "The Red Tent" or Geraldine Brooks's "People of the Book" has a novel transported readers so intimately into the complex lives of women centuries ago or so richly into a story of intrigue that transcends the boundaries of history. A "lavishly detailed" ("Elle" Canada) debut that masterfully captures sixteenth-century Venice against a dramatic and poetic tale of suspense.
Hannah Levi is renowned throughout Venice for her gift at coaxing reluctant babies from their mothers using her secret "birthing spoons." When a count implores her to attend his dying wife and save their unborn son, she is torn. A Papal edict forbids Jews from rendering medical treatment to Christians, but his payment is enough to ransom her husband Isaac, who has been captured at sea. Can she refuse her duty to a woman who is suffering? Hannah's choice entangles her in a treacherous family rivalry that endangers the child and threatens her voyage to Malta, where Isaac, believing her dead in the plague, is preparing to buy his passage to a new life. Told with exceptional skill, "The Midwife of Venice" brings to life a time and a place cloaked in fascination and mystery and introduces a captivating new talent in historical fiction.

AN OPULENT, CAPTIVATING, AND SUSPENSEFUL HISTORICAL NOVEL FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE THRILLING INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER "THE MIDWIFE OF VENICE"
The Imperial Harem, Constantinople, 1578. Hannah and Isaac Levi, Venetians in exile, have overcome unfathomable obstacles to begin life anew in the Ottoman Empire. He works in the growing silk trade, and she, the best midwife in the capital, tends to the hundreds of women in Sultan Murat III's lively and infamous harem. One night, Hannah is unexpectedly sum-moned to the extravagant palace and confronted with Leah, a Jewish peasant girl who was violently abducted. The sultan favors Leah as his next conquest and wants her to produce his heir, but if the spirited girl fails an important test, she faces a terrible fate. Taken by Leah's tenacity, Hannah risks everything to help her. But as Hannah agonizes over her decision, an enchanting stranger arrives from afar to threaten her peaceful life with Isaac, and soon Leah too reveals a dark secret that could condemn them both.
Filled with adventure and vivid detail and peopled with memorable charac-ters, "The Harem Midwife" showcases Roberta Rich's boundless talent for cap-turing readers' imaginations.