A joy to read. --New York Times Book Review
From beloved bestselling author Ursula Hegi, a new novel about three
mothers, set on the shores of the Nordsee, perfect for fans of Water
for Elephants and The Light Between Oceans.
In the summer of 1878, the Ludwig Zirkus arrives on Nordstrand in
Germany, to the delight of the island's people. But after the show, a
Hundred-Year Wave roars from the Nordsee and claims three young
children.
Three mothers are on the beach when it happens: Lotte, whose children
are lost; Sabine, a Zirkus seamstress with her grown daughter; and
Tilli, just a girl herself, who will give birth later that day at St.
Margaret's Home for Pregnant Girls. After the tragedy, Lotte's husband
escapes with the Zirkus, while she loses the will to care for their
surviving son. Tilli steps in, bonding with him in a way she isn't
allowed to with her own baby, taken away at birth. Sabine, struggling to
keep her childlike daughter safe in the world, forms a complicated
friendship with Lotte. But the mothers' fragile trio is threatened when
Lotte and her husband hatch a dangerous plan to reunite their family,
and Tilli and Sabine must try to find a way to pull them back to
reality.
As full of joy and beauty as it is of pain, and told with the luminous
power that has made Ursula Hegi a beloved bestselling author for
decades, The Patron Saint of Pregnant Girls is a shining testament to
the ways in which women hold each other up in the most unexpected of
circumstances.
