Turning the Tide (A Quaker Midwife Mystery)
Historical Cozy Mystery
3rd in Series
Setting – Massachusetts
Midnight Ink (April 8, 2018)
Paperback: 288 pages
ISBN-13: 978-0738750545
Kindle ASIN: B071HZSHJ7
A suffragist is murdered in Rose Carroll’s Massachusetts town
Excitement runs high during presidential election week in 1888. The Woman Suffrage Association plans a demonstration and movement leader Elizabeth Cady Stanton comes to town to rally the troops, one of whom is Quaker midwife Rose Carroll. But the next morning, Rose finds the dead body of the group’s local organizer.
Rose can’t help wanting to know who committed the murder, and she quickly discovers several people who have motives. The victim had planned to leave her controlling husband, and a promotion had cost her male colleague his job. She’d also recently spurned a fellow suffragist’s affections. After Rose’s own life is threatened, identifying the killer takes on a personal sense of urgency.
Dollycas’s Thoughts
It’s 1888 and women want the right to vote! Rose is getting involved with the Woman Suffrage Association and they will be demonstrating on Election Day. She has attended a few meetings and met movement leader Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
Coming home from a delivery Rose sees something by a bush. Sadly, it is the body of the head of the local Woman Suffrage group. Another murder in town. The police are following their leads but seem intent on someone Rose thinks is innocent. So with a little investigating on her own, she unearths quite a few suspects. When she receives an anonymous note telling her to stop investigating she knows she must be getting close.
I know when I pick up a book in this series that I will be transported back in time, be thoroughly entertained, and may even learn something. I love reading about the Quaker lifestyle.
In this story, we learn how marrying the love of her life could have her banned from her group for marrying outside her faith. Plus David’s mother doesn’t want him marrying outside his social status. David, a physician, and Rose, a midwife, make a fine couple. They are both forward thinkers too. He has no problem with her working or demonstrating for the right to vote. However, he does worry about her putting herself in danger with her investigations and rightly so.
I really enjoy the family time in the background of this story, baking bread, sitting down for family meals, and story time. Rose’s mother comes to visit and like Rose, she brings a calming presence to the family. She is part of the suffrage movement too and encourages her oldest granddaughter to join the cause. Smoothing over the participation with her father. When I think of Rose, calm is the first word that comes to mind. Whether helping with a birthing crisis or facing off with dangerous people she keeps her wits about her and thinks things over, trying to have a plan before acting.
The mystery part of this story was complex. The suspects ran the gambit from the victim’s spouse, her friends, people against the woman’s right to vote and just some general unsavory individuals around town. What came to pass was very exciting with a surprising ending.
Edith Maxwell is such a wonderful storyteller. Though the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote didn’t happen until 1920, it is stories like this one that brings to light the long and hard suffrage movement. With that as the theme of Rose’s story fiction and real events collide to reinforce the knowledge of the fight that started the equal rights for women movement. Rights we are still fighting for in 2018.
The characters and the dialogues are genuine. The settings are described so well. The main plot and subplots blend together nicely and the book flows effortlessly.
Until next year, I can’t wait!

About the Author
Agatha-nominated and Amazon best-selling author Edith Maxwell writes the Quaker Midwife Mysteries and the Local Foods Mysteries
, the Country Store Mysteries
(as Maddie Day
), and the Lauren Rousseau Mysteries
(as Tace Baker
), as well as award-winning short crime fiction. Maxwell lives north of Boston with her beau and three cats, and blogs with the other Wicked Cozy Authors. You can find her on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and at www.edithmaxwell.com.
You can find her on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and at www.edithmaxwell.com.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. Receiving a complimentary copy in no way reflected my review of this book. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
Love Edith Maxwell’s books and “Turning the Tide” was clearly up to her standards. I loved the book and recommend it to everyone. Read it and you will love it too!
It looks like a wonderful new series!! Thanks for featuring it.