The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue

Post date: Sep 29, 2020

World War I is raging in Europe and the Spanish Flu epidemic is killing millions of people. This story takes place over three days beginning on October 31, 1918. Nurse Julia Power is a maternity ward nurse taking care of pregnant women who also have the Spanish Flu. The hospital she works at in Dublin, Ireland is underfunded and understaffed. The maternity/fever ward where Julia works at was actually a supply room before the outbreak. When she shows up for her shift at the hospital she finds out that one of her patients died overnight. Over the next few days she will do whatever she can to deliver three babies and save the mothers from death. In 1918, pregnancy was risky, but the flu has made labor and delivery even more high risk. The women that Julia meets at the hospital will change everything she thought she knew about nursing, politics, life, and love.