The Doula

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In the powerful tradition of Chris Bohjalians Midwives and Jodi Picoults Handle With Care comes a riveting debut novel about a doula, trained to support women and their families during childbirth, on trial for her best friends death.When you come from a family of funeral directors, the telephone rings ominously in the middle of the night. For a doula, it resonates with eager anticipation. Either way, it always means lives are about to change. . . . It might seem like birth and death lie at opposite ends of a spectrum, but to Carolyn Connors, they are mirror images. Caro is no stranger to death, having grown up in a funeral home, but after witnessing her mothers miscarriage and her brothers tragic drowning as a child neither of which she is allowed to discuss she chooses to become a doula, celebrating the arrival of life rather than its departure. When her glamorous lifelong best friend, Mary Grace, calls with the exciting news that she is pregnant, Caro packs up her life and leaves home to be MGs birthing coach. But tension escalates between Caro and MGs domineering husband, Brad, and the sensitive doulas advice falls on deaf ears. MG cuts off all contact until complications with her pregnancy leave her with no one else to call. Hurrying to the unborn childs rescue and watching the life drain from her best friends body, Caro thinks the nightmare cant get any worse. . . . Until Brad accuses her of medical malpractice. For the first time in her life, Caro must confront the painful guilt, loss, and shame that have trailed her from the past, leading her to the most profound rebirth of all.

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