Secrets of the Midwife
by Ann Ormsby
Release date: March 18th 2026
Genre: Women’s Fiction
Published by: Acorn Publishing
Blurb:
Anabel Leigh has spent years pouring herself into her career, polishing her image, and protecting her fragile heart after too many losses. But everything changes when a stranger presses a baby into her arms in a crowded New York park and vanishes. The child’s golden hair and trusting eyes stir a deeply personal longing Anabel thought she’d buried forever.
What begins as a surreal moment unravels into a storm of headlines and police questions.
Savannah Maas knows the truth. She’s hiding on a farm in Georgia, living by a different code—one forged from secrets, desperation, and choices that blur the line between compassion and crime.
As the world closes in, each woman struggles to keep her dreams from crumbling. For one, receiving the baby is a miracle. For the other, the handoff is a devastating mistake.
Heart-stirring and suspenseful, Secrets of the Midwife is a story of hope, resilience, and the unexpected ways love finds us.
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Excerpt:
My big red barn with the pointed roof is situated about two hundred yards from the main house. After dinner, I always take Charlie, my Collie, for a long walk. My grandpa, Robert Maas, had built the barn and run his breeding stable for fifty years before my father took over and ran it into the ground. When my ma and pa died in a car accident a few years ago, I inherited ten acres of land, a dilapidated old farmhouse, and the barn all in Dubois, Georgia. An investor came and took all the horses as payment for the money he had given Pa.
Even though the horses are gone, I love the way the barn looks and have great memories of my grandpa teaching me how to ride and how to take care of the horses. I love the dusky, fragrant, slightly stale smell of the hay up in the hayloft that hasn’t been cleaned out since my parents ran off the road. Sometimes I come out here and read, lying in the pile of hay under the loft with my feet perched on the ladder leading up to the second floor. On the outside, one wall is covered with ivy and the other with moss. I know I should hire someone to clean it out, or do it myself, but I just haven’t gotten around to it. Tonight, Charlie is very animated, running to and fro, and sniffing the ground.
“What’s up, boy?” I ask him, but then I hear it. A moan coming from the barn. Maybe some animal is trapped in one of the stalls. It’s a big barn with twelve stalls, six on each side of the central hall. I know that feral cats live in the nooks and crannies of the storage room, but as I pull open the weather-beaten door and take a step into the entrance, I hear it again, louder this time, and I can tell it’s a human sound. Because I’m a midwife, I know that a woman is in labor in one of the stalls. Teenagers sneak in here to fornicate and now one of them has probably come back at the other end of the process. A lot of girls could avoid this type of trouble if Georgia didn’t have such strict abortion laws. Six weeks isn’t long enough for most of them to figure out they’re pregnant, let alone make a decision and then a plan.
After putting Charlie outside, I call out to the woman—my voice is deep and raspy. “Hello? Don’t worry. I can help you.”
Walking slowly down the center hall, I peer into each stall, listening for the moaning that will start with the next contraction.
“Where are you? I can help you. I’m a midwife,” I call again. I’m about halfway down the hall when I hear an urgent cry. Transition. It won’t be long. In the last stall on the left, I see a girl—maybe sixteen—squatting down, breathing hard.
GIVEAWAY
Blitz-wide giveaway (INT) ends March 26
Prize: ebook copy of Secrets of the Midwife
AUTHOR BIO:
"Ormsby has a wonderful eye for character and detail, as she fleshes out a keenly observed portrayal of small-town life." ~ Kirkus Review
"The Recovery Room" was a winner at the 2014 Paris Book Festival.
Ann Ormsby is a freelance writer with a master's degree in journalism from New York University. Her writings on reproductive freedom and other public policy issues have appeared in The Newark Star-Ledger, The Huffington Post, njspotlight.com The Westfield Leader and The Alternative Press. Her short stories have appeared in The Greenwich Village Literary Review, Every Day Fiction and hackwriters.com.
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