Review by Jon C. Stott
The Midwife’s Escape, the second book of Sue Harrison’s “The Wish Thief Trilogy,” traces a dangerous, life-threatening journey from New York City to rural Missouri made by China Deliverance Creed. The first book, The Midwife’s Touch, which takes place from the early 1850s to the early 1870s and is set mainly in the small village of Milksnake, Missouri, traces the heroine’s childhood and young womanhood. Because she is born with the power of making wishes come true, she is vulnerable to evil people wanting to control her and enrich themselves. As that novel drew to a close, China, who had gone to New York to be married, escapes from the evil mother of her fiancé and boards a train headed westward.
The Midwife’s Escape, which, in addition to flashbacks, spans a few months in 1874, recounts China’s dangerous return home along with her wise older mentor, a Cherokee midwife and healer who has taught the young woman her skills. They travel by train, foot, and mule to her hometown. Along the way, they jump from a moving train, flee the gun-wielding granddaughter of an evil landlady, and hide from a redneck sheriff who wishes to arrest China on trumped-up charges.
The novel is a real page-turner; but it is much more. Harrison examines the nineteenth-century attitudes about the roles of women and the treatment of rape victims. China is considered property and people want to control her because of her power, their actions symbolic of the general repression of women. The story’s rape victim, even though she is an unpleasant and often nasty person, is scorned and demeaned by those who should support her.
China, who is not responsible for others taking advantage of her power to make wishes come true, feels a responsibility to use her midwifery and healing skills no matter how great the risk is to her. Her biggest struggle in the novel is with her attitude to Royce Cooper, who had declared his love, but whom, even though she has strong feelings for him, she is afraid to trust.
There are several bad people in The Midwife’s Escape, people whom China fears and readers will strongly dislike. But there also many good, even if flawed, people. One of Harrison’s great gifts as a novelist is her ability to create characters that readers come to care deeply for. China, abused and threatened, has a deep sense of responsibility toward others and a deep need to find a man whom she can trust. Her kind healer and mentor, Mrs. Settle, earns our respect, and readers fear for her as she faces many life-threatening situations. Royce Cooper, one of the few men who deserve China’s love and respect, earns ours. Even “Welborn,” the cranky and stubborn, but very loyal mule is worthy of the fondness readers feel for him.
China, Mrs. Settle, and Royce Cooper escape a dangerous situation at the end of the novel and set out on a new quest. It will be a few years until readers of The Midwife’s Escape find out where the three finally arrive and what happens along the way. In the meantime, they can reread The Midwife’s Escape, reencountering characters they have come to love and finding riches of themes they may have missed on a first reading.
Jon C. Stott, Professor Emeritus of English, University of Alberta
Sue Harrison
The Midwife’s Escape
Book Two of “The Wish Thief Trilogy”
New York: Open Road, Integrated Media, 2026
