Really enjoyed this book. Emma is an exceptional writer and i have always looked forward to new books. It was especially fantastic given the times we are in today and it was so relatable.

What I love about the Emma Donahue books that I’ve read so far is that they are all so well written but they are all uniquely good reads and this one is no different.

This story is a very vivid portrayal of a fever/maternity ward in Dublin during the flu pandemic that killed millions. It is set nearing the end of the Great War and amidst the Irish uprising. It is a really poignant story given the current pandemic and makes you feel grateful that despite everything medical care has come so far and although surrounded by despair. It is hard not to draw parallels with the current pandemic and it is fascinating that 100 years on that the situation can be the same but so different at the same time but ultimately this is a historical novel, and a really good one at that. The story is quite intense and is set over 3 days as we follow the work of Nurse Julia Power as cares for expectant mothers who have come down with a flu and are quarantined together. Into Julia's regimented world step two outsiders: Doctor Kathleen Lynn, on the run from the police, and a young volunteer helper, Bridie Sweeney.

Julia is a 30 year old Irish nurse dealing with pregnant mothers who have ‘the grip’, or what we know as the Spanish Flu, in a world struggling with the last days of WWI, and a population also torn between the fight between Protestants and Catholics. She is unmarried and lives with her gentle brother who has returned from the war emotionally damaged and mute with the horrors he has seen. With her at the hospital is a young volunteer from the local home for young girls run by nuns, and a female doctor who is trying to keep one step in front of the authorities for being a member of the radical Sinn Fein. The book is set over only 3 days, but in that time the amount of history and horrible conditions of the time packed into only 300 pages is phenomenal and just brilliantly done.
Despite my antipathy towards books that have no punctuation for dialogue, I was hooked very early on and that dislike of mine faded into insignificance as I was drawn totally into these peoples’ lives. Both the nurse and volunteer are fictional characters, but the rebel doctor is based on a real person, Dr Kathleen Lynn (1874 – 1955) and I was so taken with her story I had to actually Google her and read more fully about her.

Emma Donoghue started writing this book during 2018, the 100th anniversary of The Spanish Flu. Little did she know that the world was about to have its own pandemic 2 years later just after she handed in her manuscript. I found it very eerie to read many of the parallels of the world we are living in now. This is a nod to all the nurses, doctors, suffragettes, soldiers, women and men of the world with their own troubles who help others no matter the cost to themselves. This is a brilliant, moving and totally absorbing story, perfect for all types of readers and especially those who love their history as well as for all those who loved the Call the Midwives TV series, though with more gore and reality. I cannot recommend it highly enough!

I enjoyed Room by Emma Donoghue so had high hopes this would be as good. I'm happy to say it was albeit a different story line. Its makes you think how things are in the current climate with Covid 19 and the content in the book was scarily similar. There was some quite in depth writing of certain medical matters so just be aware of that before you read this book. All in all a great book i would recommend.

Thank you to Netgalley and Pan Macmillan for this advanced reader's copy in return for my honest review. I'm a big Emma Donoghue fan, each book is so well written and the premise of each so different. Set during the great flu of 1918, this book has such remarkable timing. Beautifully written and the characters are so engaging. A master of her craft.

The Pull of the Stars is a novel set over three days during 1918 in an Irish maternity ward for flu patients, following the nurse there and the struggle with life and death. Nurse Julia Power finds herself leading the tiny three-bed ward for maternity patients with the flu, with only a new volunteer Bridie Sweeney for help, and a new doctor, Kathleen Lynn, who is on the run from the police. With Ireland under pressure from war and disease as well as divisions and inequality, the small ward sees a microcosm of the situation as birth and death go on, and Julia finds new connections with the newcomers.

It is impossible to read this book right now without thinking of the current situation, especially with all of the government warnings Julia sees and questions of who is wearing face masks and who is still going out to the cinema occurring in the background. What is impressive, however, is that it draws you into the world of the tiny ward and away from these comparisons, bringing the focus that Julia must have to care for these patients without thinking about the wider situation. There are a lot of issues raised in the novel, from the mental trauma of war to the treatment of unmarried mothers and unwanted children in Ireland, but the focus on a few characters, mostly female, gives it a human centre. The relationship between Julia and Bridie, developed over only a few days, is a highlight of the novel, showing that sparks of light can come out of dark situations, albeit briefly.

Due to the subject matter and detailed medical descriptions, some people will find this novel very difficult or not feel able to read it, but it is a gripping and touching look at a tiny example of fighting in a pandemic (and a war) from a single ward, and a wider look at Ireland in 1918. It isn't a happy novel really, but it shows the hope and strength people have to find and use during difficult times, and also women proving their skills and expertise in these circumstances. It's not the kind of novel I would've picked up if it wasn't by Emma Donoghue, but it was definitely worth reading.

Emma Donaghue’s latest novel is set in a Dublin besieged by Spanish flu at the beginning of November 2018. Julia Power works as a nurse on a ward for pregnant women with the ‘grip’. Over the two days in which she in put in charge because of staff shortages, we are exposed to the terrors and trials of the mothers to be, both medical and emotional.
Julia is helped by the indefatigable Bridie, new to volunteering. Herself an abandoned baby, she has grown up in a brutal world and yet is also strangely naive. However, Julia appreciates Bridie’s energy and warmth and the two strike up an unlikely friendship as they battle with complicated labours, still birth, pain, superstition and poverty as well as the arrogance of the male doctor who makes the occasional appearance.
This novel celebrates the courage and strength of the women at its centre. Whilst Julia and Bridie are fictional representations of those who actually nursed the sick, Dr Kathleen Lynn is based on a real woman: a pioneering radical who campaigned to improve the conditions of the poor. On the run from the police in this story, she advises and enables Julia before being arrested.
Focused as it is on inequality, toxic religion, abuse and death, this is not an easy read. However, Donaghue’s novel does not only capture brilliantly the pressure on the nursing staff and the dire conditions in which they are working. It also celebrates the bravery of ordinary people, the desire to help others and the importance of kindness. Whilst the novel’s emphasis is on women’s experiences, we are reminded that men suffer too. Julia’s brother, Tim, back from the Great War and now an elected mute is just as fragile as the vulnerable 17-year-old mother in his sister’s care.
‘The Pull of the Stars’ is a great read, full stop. However, it’s also an extraordinarily prescient story for a world in the grip of another pandemic. Readers will reflect that they are fortunate indeed not to have experienced the one of 1918, the deadliest of the twentieth century claiming over 50 million deaths worldwide.
My thanks to NetGalley and Picador for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

Another unusual book. Very uniquely written. I thought this was very apt for a book published in 2020- one written about a flu which was wiping out people left right and centre. Interesting characters and heart warming plot. A perfect book to read as the world goes through a pandemic- kind of gives you hope that good thinks do come out of bad situations.

Beautifully written and often moving, this novel is set in Dublin towards the end of the First World War and depicts the struggle of a young nurse, Julia, to make sense of the suffering around her. It is hideously graphic in parts - I found myself having to put my kindle down at one point, when I actually thought the description of a childbirth gone wrong (on top of all the other things that had just happened, in the book) were going to make me faint! And I am not normally squeamish. But it was marvellous stuff, no less enjoyable for that, and full of poignant, keenly drawn moments that made me draw breath. Finally, dealing with the Spanish flu as it does, it was also weirdly prescient!

What makes a good book? I ponder this every time I read a novel that I deem to be worthy of 5 stars. I think the answer is, a good book makes you think. The Pull of the Stars made me laugh, cry, grip the sofa in terror, gape with awe, but above all, it made me think.

I have not been able to stop thinking about this book.

In my line of work, I read constantly, and most books I read are very, very good. But Emma Donoghue is one of only a handful of authors whose words are on another level entirely. In this novel, in a few deft strokes she conjures up the world of 1918, in the midst of the worst pandemic since the Black Death, and somehow manages to convey the fear, struggle, love and hope in people’s hearts, through the eyes of a single character.

The Pull of the Stars quite literally gripped me, like a pair of forceps around my head, from the first page, as I followed Nurse Julia from her home to the hospital where she works in the Maternity/Fever ward. I am not a nurse, or a midwife, or anything to do with the health service, and yet I have had cause to be thankful for the knowledge and care of our NHS on numerous occasions, not least when I gave birth, nearly six weeks prematurely, to my twins, sixteen and a half years ago now. I was thinking of that traumatic time in my life the whole time I was reading The Pull of the Stars, and thanking my ‘lucky stars’ that I live now, and not back in 1918. I would undoubtedly have died then. My twin babies would likely have died. This novel made me think deeply about that.

We are journeying through another pandemic as I write this, and The Pull of the Stars made me contemplate how different our world was back in 1918, and how little has changed in the hundred years since. We will always have pandemics of one sort or another, and how we cope with them, and care for each other in the process, will be the marker of our success or failure as humans.

Donoghue’s novel does what all good books do, it takes the reader deep into their own heart, and makes them think, and perhaps appreciate a little more those unsung stars of the NHS who help keep us alive.

What an apposite time to be reading this wonderful book - with the world currently in the grip of The COVID pandemic and the book describing the influenza pandemic of 1918. It is centred on a maternity/fever ward in a Dublin hospital and in the context of the final months of the First World War. Donoghue’s writing is always exceptional, her characters beautifully realised and her plots fizzing with colour, momentum and urgency. The descriptions of illness, birth and death may be a little too vivid for some readers but to me everything in the book was perfectly balanced and real and I read it in one sitting. A truly moving and outstanding book.

The Pull of the Stars - Emma Donoghue
🌟🌟🌟🌟
“The public is urged to stay out of public places such as cafes, theatres, cinemas & drinking establishments.
See only those persons who one needs to see
Refrain from shaking hands
Laughing or chatting closely together
If one must kiss, do so through a hanker chief
Sprinkle sulphur in the shoes
If in doubt don’t stir out”

Prescient words of advice, not from today, but from Spanish Flu ridden Dublin of 1918. How could Emma Donoghue have known, when writing this book in 2018, how relevant this would be in 2020? The Pull of the Stars is set over 3 intense, dramatic days in a small maternity fever unit in a busy, overcrowded Dublin hospital where Nurse Julia Power looks after her charges. Dr Kathleen Lynn (an actual renowned Dublin doctor) is on the run from the police & Bridie Sweeney is a volunteer helper. Together these 3 women forge an unique friendship in the most extreme of circumstances as they battle to save the lives of mothers & babies.

Huge kudos to Emma Donoghue who has created a fantastic medical, social and historical account of a post-1916 Rising Dublin, divided by class & poverty, where the Church is all powerful. References are made to the horrors of the Magdelan Laundries & residential institutional homes and to the squalor of Dublin’s tenement buildings. I really enjoyed this book and refer you to these final hopeful words from Dr Lynn:
“The human race settles on terms with every plague in the end. Or a stalemate, at the least. We somehow muddle along, sharing the world with each new form of life”.
Thank you to @netgalley for this ARC in return for my honest review.

I love Emma Donoghue's writing, and The Pull of the Stars is up there with some of my favourites.

Novels with long chapters can go one of two ways: they either sweep you up in the flow or you get lost in the flood of words. Thankfully, this is definitely one that sweeps you away. The narrative is told over three days with intense detail and sensitive intimacy.

I perhaps enjoyed the book more than it objectively deserved: at times it's a little glib and overly sentimental. And I can see that readers who don't gel with the protagonist are going to find this a slog. But I got so caught up in the action, I didn't really mind.

The Pull of the Stars is dizzying and claustrophobic, relentless and brilliant - and as a book about a pandemic, it's oh-so timely.

What could be more topical: Julia Power is a nurse on a Dublin maternity ward during the 1918 flu pandemic.
This thoroughly gripping novel tracks what happens on the ward over three days as she battles to save the women and babies in her care with the help of new volunteer Bridie Sweeney.
We follow the harrowing stories of the women on the ward and the burgeoning relationship between Julia and Bridie.
But we also see the backdrop of the horror of the first world war, particularly through Julia’s brother Tim, a veteran whose trauma and suffering has left him unable to speak.
I always enjoy Donoghue’s novels - each one is very different. She is a beautiful and evocative writer.
I read this as England once again lives through a flu pandemic and it feels heartbreakingly familiar although the treatments were so different too. Whisky as a cure, anyone?
It’s not an easy read - heartbreaking and uplifting in equal measures - but I would thoroughly recommend it.

Emma Donoghue is fabulous writer. I have read a lot of her work and she never fails to impress me.
Set over just three days in 1918 in Dublin #ThePullOfTheStars is a beautiful book. Very different to her most famous book Room, but just as impactful and moving. The research must have been extensive, as her knowledge of the Spanish flu, midwifery, and the political and social situation in Ireland at the time is faultless. It all adds to the story without overwhelming the main themes of loyalty, loss, friendship and hope. I highly recommend this beautiful book. It would be a really good choice for book clubs and for those studying history at school or college. I absolutely loved it.
Thank you to the publisher, the author and #NetGalley for the opportunity to read this special book.

When she set her latest novel in the middle of the 'Spanish flu' outbreak at the end of World War I, Emma Donoghue couldn't possibly have imagined it would be so relevant and timely when published in summer 2020. No doubt this unexpected coincidence will add to its appeal as books dealing with plagues have become popular as people turn to literature to make sense of current events. But it would be a shame to simply dismiss any success as lucky timing - this is a really excellent novel regardless of when a reader comes to it.

It is set over just three days in 1918 Dublin. The point of view character is Julia Power, a midwife about to turn 30, and struggling in an understaffed hospital full of flu patients. She finds herself in charge of a small ward of women who are both pregnant and suffering from the virus, with only a young girl to assist her who has never worked in a hospital before. Meanwhile, the lady doctor (a rarity in those days) who has been drafted in turns out to be wanted by the police for her role in the Easter uprising.

It's natural to look for the parallels with the Covid-19 lockdown, and there are certainly some. But most of the action is centred on the ward itself, rather than the experiences of ordinary civilians. Its depictions of events on the wards - sometimes mundane, sometimes dramatic - are completely convincing and it is extremely compelling. I read it very fast, even delaying watching the next episode of my favourite TV show to keep reading. The characters are likeable, beautifully drawn and realistic. The depictions of birth, death and medical procedures are vivid without being gratuitous and make for gripping reading.

Plot wise, the medical dramas of the patients alone are enough to keep you absorbed, but there's plenty more to it than that. In fact, the plot took an unexpected turn that I hadn't seen coming. A reading group could find a good session's worth of discussion topics here - hierarchical societies, Irish independence, women's rights, health inequalities, whether violence is justified to use in any cause, etc. etc,. Don't think this is some sort of worthy tome though - it's really not. These topics are touched on but 'shown' not 'told'. It is really just a fantastic, readable, absorbing story. Fiction at its best.

The parts about the impact of flu - and childbirth - on women already weakened by poverty now seem shockingly prescient. The tragedy is that more than 100 years after the book is set, those inequalities still exist. Both the Covid-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests have thrown stark light on how your chances of surviving a severe viral illness, or childbirth, depend very much on your life circumstances. Some elements of the story you can think 'thank goodness it's not like that now' but all too much of it you feel ashamed to realise we haven't moved on that much at all.

This is sure to be one of the best books I read this year, and one of Donoghue's best. Highly recommended to all readers.

A prescient novel, written before the current Covid 19 outbreak, The Pull of the Stars has startling parallels between the Spanish Flu in 1918 and our life today. Set in a maternity hospital in Dublin and spanning only three days, this novel gallops along and sweeps you into a time and place where life was precarious and revolution was in the air. I can’t recommend this novel highly enough -Emma Donough is an impressive author.

In the opening scene of Emma Donoghue's eerily prescient new novel, set in early twentieth-century Dublin during a flu pandemic, a man hawks up phlegm on the floor of a tram carrying commuters to work.
'Ye might as well have sprayed us with bullets!' moans one of the passengers. And here we are again. I wonder whether if this were set in a future dystopia rather than the past, it would have been even stronger, but of course Donoghue had no idea about the pandemic at the time of writing and, as the novel shows, the past has its own echoes and eerie similarities to today (including a culture of victim-blaming, which particularly boils the heroine's blood when she sees posters blaming the sick for their own deaths).

Because of its similarity to COVID-19, some of the details in The Pull of the Stars have the immediacy of Room - which was inspired by contemporary news stories as well as the author's experience of motherhood.
However, this is also the more historical, romantic Emma Donoghue of Slammerkin, Hood, The Wonder and most recently Akin - taking on questions of family, love and passion between women (nice to see some of that back)! while continuing to be fascinated by the collision between science and religion, medical practicality and the unseen workings of the Universe (the 'stars' of the title, which reference mortality as well as romance).

To some extent this duality is mirrored in the book, with the first two thirds an earthbound look at the dullness as well as the drama of giving birth during a flu pandemic. The three women the heroine Julia is entrusted with all have difficult labours, and sometimes the depictions are eye-watering - when a porter tells Julia that women don't pay the 'blood tax' of war, she asks him to look at her ward. However, the last third is heightened, dramatic, feverish - appropriately so - as Julia struggles to hold onto the love she's only just found.

Definitely vintage Donoghue, 'Room' may have been a one-off in the chords it struck around the world, but in a writer this good, there's no need to complain about a return to form.

This book hit home on so many levels. It is set at the time of a pandemic in the early 20th century which obviously echoes the situation we are in today. being pregnant as well this book gave an indication of what I'll expect to go through in a few weeks. it was a beautiful fantastic and excellent read.

Remarkable coincidence that this novel, set during the time of the Spanish flu pandemic, should come out when the world is in the middle of another brutal pandemic, Covid-19, making Emma Donoghue’s depiction of a virus-infested world all-the-more resonant. This novel is not for the faint-hearted with its vivid depiction of a maternity ward, described as an ‘antichamber of hell’, and lest we forget the (at times) macabre experience of childbirth, Donoghue’s mellifluous prose hones in unabashedly, reminding us of the cruelty of a society where a woman’s love for her husband is judged by how many children she bares for him. I found this gothic-style vignette of chauvinistic and intolerant early 20th Century Dublin engrossing and incredibly moving at times, and believe it is a novel that will linger in my mind for some time to come.

This was an absolute rollercoaster of a book. Set in 1918 in an Irish hospital, Julia is a nurse thrown in at the deep end running a tiny ward for pregnant women during the influenza pandemic. It is gripping and visceral, with in depth details of labour and death. She struggles to do her best, aided by a volunteer from the local convent. It touches on the horrors of medical care before widespread antibiotics and vaccinations, the difficulties women faced becoming doctors and being trusted to know what is best for their bodies, in every sense. The book mentions the widespread domestic abuse and institutional abuse of the time, and the lack of power and agency most women had in their lives. It sounds depressing, but there are glimpses of hope, reminding me of Room. I literally could not put this book down, and reading it during a pandemic just added even more layers.

The reviews really helped me prepare for reading this book! I was emotionally invested throughout and exhausted by the end...

Brilliantly absorbs you into a time that I knew nothing about previously.

Also, very prescient what with the current COVID-19 situation. I automatically drew similarities between the Spanish Flu pandemic and the current situation.

Read this when you can give it your full attention.

Thank you for the ARC.

A very strong 4.5!

The setting is bleak, a hospital in 1918 Dublin during the Spanish influenza and World War I, there’s also the shadow of the Irish fight for independence and tensions between Catholics and Protestants looming large. Donoghue paints a detailed and believable picture of this time and it was interesting to see the parallels between 1918 and today. It’s a rather timely novel.

We follow the sole nurse working on a maternity/fever (pregnant women with the Spanish flu) ward over 3 days. Those three days are incredibly eventful as life comes and goes from the ward. Heart wrenching moments are followed directly by moments of success and joy, while you could guess at the direction of the story you never quite know how exactly it’s going to unfold.

The novel is largely female driven with a number of expectant mothers, an untrained volunteer assisting the nurse and the inclusion of a real historical character in Dr Kathleen Lynn. They represent several different areas of society. These are all complex characters who have been beaten down time and time again by a situation out of their control but somehow they keep on going, trying to do what they think is best for others.

This book requires you invest a lot, at times almost too much, but for me that’s what made this reading experience.

Looking at the title alone you might not think that this is “a book for our times”. But in this latest Donoghue historical novel we are taken to Dublin in October 1918 – and the midst of the “Great Flu Epidemic” – the mythical “Bone Man” is therefore collecting thousands of people. To offset the disastrous scale of the impact at the time Donoghue is presenting us with just four days through the eyes of a (youngish) nurse Julia Power who works in maternity services.
In the introduction Julia is travelling to work by bicycle and bus from the home she shares with her brother – who is still suffering injuries both mental and physical from his time on the Western Front. He has a small pension but even with their joint incomes money is tight and life is sparse at the best of times. But in addition to that, the speed and severity of the pandemic is starting to have a major impact on basic ways of life, with increasing shortages, of food, utilities, transport and people for many essential roles. This is adding to the difficulties and distress that more and more families were facing with the loss of loved ones.
The hospital is swamped with the ill and dying, but “ordinary” medical requirements have not stopped. Nobody really knows what the impact the disease will have on flu victims or their unborn babies. Julia will be told that she will have to run a small “overflow” ward with just three beds. Apart from a nun who “mans” the nightshift, she is required to do this alone, that is until a young, untrained volunteer, Bridie, from the religious “home” nearby, appears to help. Doctors are in short supply and often inexperienced. Donoghue will introduce a woman Doctor Lynne. But she is based on real life – someone involved in the 1916 rising, until with concern over security issues rising, she will be re-arrested in the hospital and cease to provide critical medical support.
Just as the current Coronavirus has directed a not particularly flattering spotlight on the failures of our social systems – so Donoghue will use this novel to do the same on the medical and social practices and attitudes in 1918 Dublin. Even before the flu pandemic it would not have been pleasant to watch or indeed to be subject to at times of vulnerability. Expect detailed depictions of the risks and realities of maternity practices in the time before antibiotics when large numbers of mothers and babies died. Add the realities of the flu – in the midst of a pandemic with overrun services - and the uneasiness increases. She will explore the realities of trying to treat people with this deadly disease – a disease that could kill rapidly, but one that was both little understood and had little effective treatment other than trying to bolster the resistance of those ill with food, drink and failing medical supplies.
Behind that of course, then as now, people continued their lives as usual as far as possible – often developing a new resilience for the good of others, or to their own agenda. Donoghue has not forgotten that the First World War had also laid down layers of distressed and damaged people already trying to cope with that too. Life is not single layered. In addition nursing was often peopled with nuns and other religious working to their own agendas. Groups who ran powerful institutions but held a strong broader social sway and influence. Many readers will have already heard of the harshness and iniquities of many of these places that were supposed to be refuges for the vulnerable. Through Bridie in particular deeper the truths of the matter – both physical and in ethos – and the reality of those places will be explored. For one short night Julia and Bridie will find comfort in the quiet presence of the other – even in this extremely challenging place and time – but that cannot last.
It should be said that this is not a novel for those lacking a strong stomach, because Donoghue does not pull any punches. Albeit (a minor criticism) it might be that she has a slightly benevolent view of a hospital of this time in crisis and is not harsh enough. But she is a consummate writer and her ability to present history in a way that is both visceral and relevant is unmatched. With her fluent writing style that draws the reader along, and into her places, this is another very fine novel.

This was my second Donoghue and I enjoyed it as well. This book takes place in Dublin during Spanish flu. It's a bit slow going until the end, but nevertheless very well written and emotional.

I enjoyed my time, and if you're interested in the blurb, it's a good one.

Thanks a lot to NG and the publisher for this copy.

Initial Thoughts upon Finishing
UM WOW. This blew me away?!? I can't even work out why this was so brilliant?! I'm seriously amazed. This is my first Donoghue book and oh my god I feel like I'm re-entering the world for the first time since I picked this up. I couldn't stop reading this even though the scope of the plot is quite small, spanning only a handful of days in a maternity ward. AH. This was simply brilliant, what else can I say.

The Pull of the Stars
This story is set in 1918 during the height of the Spanish Flu. It follows a (nearly) thirty-year-old woman called Julia who lives in Dublin and works in the hospital as a nurse. She lives with her brother, Tim, who was injured fighting in the war and is now a mute. Julia is taking care of the influenza maternity ward (pregnant women who also have the flu). When the nurse in charge (yes there is an official term for that but shhh) takes ill, it's up to Julia to roll up her sleeves and try to manage all the trials of the maternity ward alone, until a volunteer called Bridie is recruited in to help her.

The story is gripping, realistic, terrifying and harrowingly relatable to our current situation. With the story only spanning a few days, a lot of detail is poured into the character development of Julia and individual cases that come into her ward. We follow her journey as she does her best to manage all the curveballs that tricky pregnancies throw her way. It is quite literally impossible to put down and not a particularly long book either: I found myself finishing this within a small number of sittings.

Why I Loved This
Firstly, for the pace of the plot and how interesting it was. I could not work out for the life of me why, at 50% through, when the story had gone no further than one day on the maternity ward, what was so damn interesting and addictive about it?? BUT OH BOY - have you ever watched Call the Midwife? And you just can't stop watching? The horror! The joy! The stress! The excitement! All heightened in the setting of a war and a global pandemic.

But secondly, the characters of Julia and Bridie were incredible. I can practically see and hear them. I feel intimately familiar with all their mannerisms and who they are as people. Donoghue has woven these characters to life with words in a way I never thought possible. If I bumped into Julia on my way to work one morning, I wouldn't be at all surprised. She's just so real and relatable to me, especially with the subtle but continuous toying with whether she should be stressed about turning thirty or whether that was okay (not that I'm turning thirty yet but still, getting older and being single/childless feels like a TIME PRESSURE PEOPLE).

Why It's So Good
I think these two things combined (great characters and a short timeline) made the whole thing seem so much more intimate. Instead of exploring the atrocious situation of the poor (a massive topic), which is heavily alluded to throughout the story, we focus on just one very specific element of that reality: pregnancy.

We become intensely familiar with the setting of the story and it's done a great job to pique the reader's interest in the living conditions of the poor in 1918. You find yourself so invested in the history of this time because the personal and specific examples of a mother enduring her twelfth pregnancy, or a girl giving birth for the first time at way too young of an age, just sucks you in and makes you want to explore more.

It's masterfully done to really make you connect with the emotions that Julia's is feeling. This is also some queer representation within this story (FF relationship) which is worth noting. Whilst it doesn't take centre stage it's certainly a great element of this story that completes the picture.

Summary
I clearly need to read more of Donoghue's writing. Overall this was brilliant and I dumbstruck by how much I enjoyed this. The rises and falls of the plot's climaxes rush you through the story in a good way. You're lulled into a sense of security with a nice scene and then the pace is ramped right up with a dramatic, stressful scene a few pages later. This book is impossible to not love and binge.

An extraordinary book where we get right inside the head of nurse Julia Power as she single-handedly cares for the woman on this Dublin maternity ward who also have Spanish flu. Every action, every decision, every feeling is described during 2 intense days. The doctor on call is not only a woman, not usual in 1918, but on the side of the rebels. She and the volunteer ward assistant, Bridie, change Julia’s life forever in unexpected ways. Life-affirming, tragic, wonderful, it’s all of this, and stayed with me for a long time.

I was really looking forward to reading this having read ‘Room’, which I had mixed thoughts about. However, I really enjoyed this, if that’s an appropriate thing to say. There is some familiarity about it as not only is it set of a specific period of time but takes place territory during the 1918 Flu pandemic (of which we now know more given our own present pandemic). It follows Nurse Julia Power who is in charge of a three-bed maternity ward. Donoghue is at her best when she is confined to a tiny space and I really felt the intensity of the relationships between the patients and staff and life and death. I'd recommend this for any Donoghue fans but especially for those new to her.

Thank you to Pan Macmillan and NetGalley for the ARC

An incredibly prescient novel which is set over three days in Dublin during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. Reading this during lockdown, this stunning piece of writing held a unique resonance for me as Emma Donoghue has captured the zeitgeist a century later. I am a huge fan of Emma Donoghue's writing and as with all her novels, this is meticulously researched, beautifully evocative and compelling reading. Thank you Netgalley for the advance review copy.

“I felt I was adrift in a leaking boat with these strangers, waiting out a storm.”

This is a fantastic, powerfully empathetic novel, a moving story of coming together through trial, helping and loving each other despite hardship, and holding strong in the face of complete desperation.

It’s 1918 and an influenza pandemic is running rife across an already war-weary Ireland. Julia Power is a midwife in a hospital utterly overrun in the crisis. The staff numbers are dwindling as doctors and nurses themselves succumb to the dreadful illness, while the patient numbers soar, leaving those staff remaining stretched dreadfully. Julia finds herself on her own in charge of the maternity fever ward, with nothing but a fresh volunteer without an ounce of knowledge or experience, in Bridie Sweeney. Julia and Bridie battle together with death, ‘the bone man’, and try to save their patients as best they can with occasional help from the rebel Doctor Lynn. This felt like a hectic race of a read; while the characters raced and battled to save lives I felt completely along with the journey and couldn’t put it down. I loved the character of Bridie, the young woman without any training whatsoever but reams of energy and optimism despite the hellish, desperate circumstances of the improvised fever maternity ward, and a terribly deprived background. What a girl to have on your side in a crisis! The struggle felt almost impossible, as if there was little to be done to ‘influence the stars’ but the characters tried their utmost anyway, and loved for what moments they could. I’m a little bit heartbroken by this book after finishing it, it was that good! And given current circumstances, I think this book has a lot to say and learn from.

Thank you to the publisher, Pan Macmillan, and #Netgalley for the arc to review.

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I read this in almost straight through in a day - the definition of impossible to put down. The focus is sharp and unrelenting, Donoghue's scrupulous detail is intense, and all together there is no break or chink where the reader might pause. You simply have to drag yourself away from the characters and their fight to live.

The plot revolves around the fight against Spanish Flu in Ireland, alongside the politics of Home Rule, the Great War and female suffrage. The constant washing of hands, wearing face masks, concern for immunity and urging from the government to avoid public gatherings are all too familiar in 2020, making a past struggle only too relevant today.

Wow, what a read this is!

I've read a couple of Emma Donoghue's books before - 'Room' and 'Akin', both of which were excellent reads, and this new story does not disappoint.

We follow Julia (Nurse Power) through a hectic few days of love, life, and death in the temporary maternity fever ward of a Dublin hospital in 1918 - with three beds inhabited by pregnant ladies suffering from the flu pandemic which is ravaging the nation and the globe.

Over the course of the few days of the story, Julia encounters two amazing ladies, alongside the patients who transit through her ward, (themselves a wealth of interesting characters). Dr Lynn is a female (shock horror!) doctor, also somewhat of a political rebel being sought out by the law for her part in the Irish politics of the day; Bridie Sweeney, a young girl, brought up in the horrors of religious "homes", arrives as a volunteer on the ward - and soon proves to be worth her weight in gold.

Though set in just a few short days, Emma Donoghue packs an immense amount of story and experience into this short timeframe. I cared deeply about the women in this story, they carry with them such a breadth of experience and history.

Highly recommended, and particularly poignant right now.

An incredibly emotional read, particularly when read during a global pandemic. So many parallels that eerily bring this cleverly told, nutshell, 72 hour storyline to vivid and often horrific life. Hugely gutsy detail and immensely believable characters. Sent shivers down my spine when I realised how the climax was going to pan out. Outstanding literature!

Set in Dublin during the influenza pandemic of 1918, in a maternity ward for expectant mothers with the virus, the story follows Nurse Power, Dr Lynn, volunteer Bridie, and the women in the ward, over the course of three days.

The timing of the publication of this book could not be more appropriate.
So much feels very familiar- the advice to wear masks, avoid touching and crowded spaces, and to, only if you really must, kiss through a handkerchief. As well as the thought that if poor children 'weren't going to school these days, they couldn't be getting their free dinners there either,' bringing to mind Marcus Rashford's free school meals victory.

It took me a while to start enjoying the story. Most of part one is description of the action on a labour ward - this brought back some undesirable "Oh gosh, I'd forgotten about that" moments of memories from my own labour (despite it being set 100 years before I gave birth, there were actually quite a few similarities!). But I also didn't know or care about the characters yet, so I wasn't empathetic about their experiences. But, by part 4 I was totally invested, and actually wish the story was drawn out for a little longer. I wanted to know more about the characters, about Dr Lynn and Bridie, and the relationships that were formed between them and Nurse Power. It still shocks me to read about some of the things that happened in Ireland's residential institutions - mother and baby centres, homes, what Bridie calls being in the pipe - no matter how many books I read or films I watch based around the subject.

I thought whilst reading the first half of this book that it might be a 3 star rating from me, but the second half focused much more on characteristion and became much more my kind of book.
⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

A word of warning: I would advise you, if you've not yet given birth but may someday like to, to be very prepared if you decide to read this!

The Pull of the Stars is set over three days in a Dublin hospital, in 1918. The city is in chaos, four years into the First World War, still reeling from the 1916 Easter Rising and now struck by the influenza epidemic. The city is unrecognisable to someone like myself, living there in 2020, but some things are now more familiar than I'd like: the masks, the notices on public transport, the flinching away from anyone who coughs near you. While this novel was written before the COVID 19 breakout, the release this year feels like uncanny timing.

Nurse Power goes to work the day before her 30th birthday, leaving her shell shocked younger brother to look after the house they share, with no idea how significant these days will be. She works in a tiny, temporary ward for expectant mothers who have influenza. When she arrives, shes told she is acting ward sister for the day. The only help she has is a brash porter, an absent and overworked doctor, and a young woman who comes in to help as a runner, Bridie. Soon, Julia Power's world narrows down to the women fighting for their lives and their babies lives on the ward. The more experienced nurses and doctors are either nowhere to be found, as the hospital threatens to crack under pressure, or they offer advice without listening to Nurse Power or the patients themselves. Only Dr Kathleen Lynn seems to have the patient's best interests at heart, though she is gossiped about as a lady doctor and a revolutionary.

I loved reading this particular point of view, the sensible, brave nurse who is only recovering from the flu herself before stretching herself thin, and the sister of an Irishman, Tim, who fought for England to help the Home Rule case, turning her nose up at the rebels. This is quite a different view to what I grew up with, where the Rising was glorified, but you can see how this put the city under even more strain at the time. She can't understand Dr Lynn's part in it, and though feels closer to this woman as time goes on, who wanted to set up a hospital for the poor.

Julia is already well versed in how poverty has affected the lives of her patients, especially the mothers on their twelfth pregnancies despite complications with earlier births. She knows also about the trouble at home rich and poor women can have with abusive families, and throughout the course of the book becomes all to aware of the evils that happen behind the closed doors of Church institutions.

Her friendship with Bridie quickly develops through their dependence on one another, and the two women realise the depths of their feelings towards one another as Bridie tells Julia about her life as a boarder with the nuns. This is possibly the most striking part of the book; before this Julia was telling Bridie "obvious" things about the body and the world, but the reader sees in real time how all the things that Julia feels she knows about life, as a worldly nurse, feel no longer true, and her worldview is changed forever.

This is an incredibly engaging book, and after hooking me with a great story and compelling characters, made me think differently to that political moment in history, how the epidemic was managed by the government, how the poor are disproportionately affected and how women through history have had to fight, not in the battlefield, but in hospitals and in the home, and how people have struggled for years while hidden away in institutions. I felt deeply sad after finishing as this is just one story of so many, and how these problems are not safely in the past, but must be faced, bravely, every day.

I would recommend this novel to fans of "The Wonder", as well as "Dear Mrs Bird" or "Life After Life". It is absolutely one of my favorite reads of this year, and such a timely and necessary read for our times. While the novel is upsetting in places, it shows us that there are unprecedented moments throughout history, but they too can pass, and humankind have survived so much, we will survive this too.

The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue
I have read and loved other novels by Emma Donoghue such as Akin and Room and was therefore very keen to read this novel and I was not disappointed. It is all about the strength which some people find in even the darkest of situations.
We first encounter Julia on her bicycle cycling to catch the tram as the matron does not like her to cycle all the way as she arrives breathless and dishevelled. When she arrives she encounters Nurse Cavanagh who has just had to deal with a man arrived at the hospital only to “whoop out his lifeblood” all over her. On entering her ward she finds that Sister Finnigan is in charge of maternity so she is ward sister with no assistance.
Then a young untrained volunteer, Bridie, is sent to help her and together they manage struggle through the next three days of births, deaths and despair. Assisting them is Doctor Kathleen Lynn; on the run from the police and helping those she can while she still has her freedom. This character is based on a real person and the events which are described in the story are also grounded in real events during the 1918 flu pandemic which claimed so many lives.
The timing of this book, set during a pandemic, to arrive on our shelves during another pandemic shines a spotlight on the events unfolding around us. The story is heart breaking. As with our own Corona Virus crisis, the book highlights the incredible strain on the carers tasked with caring for the sick whilst endangering their own lives. And, is there hope for the future here? Doctor Lynn addressing a patient wisely says:-
“The human race settles on terms with every plague in the end. Or a stalemate, at the least. We somehow muddle along, sharing the earth with each new form of life.”
I feel privileged to have read this book and I want to thank the author, the publishers, and Net Galley for the opportunity to read it in return for an honest review. I thoroughly recommend it.

I confess I hadn't read Donoghue before but the premise for this novel intrigued me, not least the setting so relevant to today's pandemic. Not always an easy read but compulsive and skilfully includes all kinds of issues from political to theological and beyond. I'll be looking out for this author's back catalogue now. Recommended.

Thanks to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for ARC.

Set in a hospital ward in Dublin during the 1918 influenza pandemic (of which I was previously unaware) “The Pull of the Stars” is a moving and heart-rending story that will remain long in my memory.

The unfortunate patients in the maternity fever ward where Nurse Julia Power works come from different backgrounds, each with their own fascinating backstory. However the potency of the virus coupled with the limited supply of medical provisions as a result of the ongoing war make Julia’s efforts all the more difficult, and tragically not all of her patients can be saved. Julia is assisted by an amazing volunteer Bridie Sweeney, who appears from nowhere seemingly like a breath of fresh air but is strangely unaware of some things but very perceptive of others.

Whilst the story is a fictional account of the time and captures the mood of the Irish citizens post-1916 rising, one of the characters is incredibly based on an actual protagonist that took part in the rising.

Although this is pandemic themed, it is totally unrelated to the current COVID crisis bar the odd mention of masks.

This was one of the best books I've read this year. Compelling, almost suffocating, but in a good way. I was drawn to the time and place and the story held me tightly and would not let me go. It was graphic and at times brutal but it only served to hold my attention more strongly. I've been recommending this book to everyone.

I never thought I’d read a novel about an historical pandemic whilst living within a contemporary one. But, never say never, and if you’re inclined to shy away from this one because it’s just all too much at present, I don’t blame you, but you will be missing out. This is a magnificent novel in its own right, but reading it now, whilst our world is in the grips of pandemic, was an offering of context like no other. The influenza pandemic of 1918 killed more people than WWI, an estimated three to six percent of the human race (Author note). The Pull of the Stars is set in Dublin, at the beginnings of the pandemic. It unfolds over three days within the maternity fever ward of a Dublin hospital and is narrated by a nursing midwife who has been put in charge of the ward and is expected to run it solo, after all, resources and people are stretched thin; a pandemic is raging. However, when you combine the later stages of pregnancy with a deadly flu, managing a ward of three patients is not as easy as it may seem.

‘Always on their feet, these Dublin mothers, scrimping and dishing up for their misters and chisellers, living off the scraps left on plates and gallons of weak black tea. The slums in which they somehow contrived to live were as pertinent as pulse or respiration rate, it seemed to me, but only medical observations were permitted on a chart. So instead of poverty I wrote malnourishment or debility. As code for too many pregnancies I might put anaemia, heart strain, bad back, brittle bones, varicose veins, low spirits, incontinence, fistula, torn cervix, or uterine prolapse. There was a saying I’d heard from several patients that struck a chill into my bones: She doesn’t love him unless she gives him twelve. In other countries, I’d heard women might take discreet measures, but in Ireland such things were not only illegal but unmentionable.’

This a novel about nursing, midwifery, the dangers of childbearing, a deadly influenza pandemic, WWI, the state of Ireland in the early twentieth century – both politically and socially, and, above all, humanity and our will to survive even the darkest of times. As is the way with Emma Donoghue, the devil is in the detail. So much is explored within this novel, and as detailed in the author note, all is based on historical fact. It’s not a cheery read, and at times it’s confronting and devastating, but it’s just so beautifully written, a sorrowful symphony of truth and history that is incredibly insightful and so very relevant today; possibly even more so than the author intended, given that she could not have foreseen that this novel would be released in the midst of a global pandemic of the likes she had written about.

‘All these autopsies being industriously performed all over the world, and just about the sum of what we know about this wretched influenza is that it takes about two days to incubate.
Aren’t we any closer to a vaccine, then?
She shook her head and her loose braid leapt. Until one of us manages to spot the bacterium itself on a slide… If one doesn’t know the enemy, how can one beat him? All rather humbling, she added bitterly. Here we are in the golden age of medicine– making such great strides against malaria, anthrax, rabies, diphtheria, tetanus– and a common-or-garden grip is beating us hollow.’

~~~

‘We could always blame the stars.
I beg your pardon, Doctor?
That’s what influenza means: influenza delle stelle–the influence of the stars. Medieval Italians thought the illness proved the sky must be governing their fates, that they were quite literally star-crossed.
I pictured that: the heavenly bodies trying to fly us like upside-down kites. Or perhaps just yanking on us for their obscure amusement.’

No historical novel about Ireland can ignore the political state of the day, and this is woven quite meticulously into the narrative. Doctor Lynn was an interesting character, a protestant member of Sinn Féin (Sinn Féin is a democratic socialist and left-wing party, not a Catholic one, despite misconceptions that have been fuelled over time), and she is based on an incredible real woman of the same name. I enjoyed the conversations she had with Julia (the main character) and the way in which Julia then began to unpick her notions about ‘the rebels’ and who they were and what they were trying to achieve. This relationship offers so much insight into the dangers of assumption, particularly when it is based on an outside, media driven, government propagandist view. As Doctor Lynn expressed more of her views as they got to know each other, Julia couldn’t help but come to the conclusion that she shared them.

‘Tears prickled behind my eyes. I said, I just don’t understand how a physician could have turned to the gun. Nearly five hundred people died.
She didn’t sound offended. Here’s the thing, my dear: they die anyway, from poverty rather than bullets. The way this poor island’s misgoverned, it’s mass murder by degrees. If we stand by, none of us will have clean hands.
My head was spinning. I said, faltering: I really have no time for politics.
Oh, but everything’s politics.’

Throughout the novel, health notices from the day are reproduced, ones that were distributed by the government with instructions on how to stay safe from the deadly flu. As a health professional, Julia was somewhat scathing towards them, resenting the misinformation and feeling that they were in many ways contributing to the spread of the virus by ignoring the impact of poverty on hygiene and distancing and focusing instead on making individuals responsible without offering them a means of being able to take the reins of that responsibility.

‘On the landing, yesterday’s poster hooked my attention: Would they be dead if they’d stayed in bed? I had an impulse to rip it down, but that probably constituted conduct unbecoming to a nurse, as well as treason. Yes, they’d be bloody dead, I ranted inside my head. Dead in their beds or at their kitchen tables eating their onion a day. Dead on the tram, falling down in the street, whenever the bone man happened to catch up with them. Blame the germs, the Germans, the Lord God Almighty, the unburied corpses, the dust of war, the random circulation of wind and weather. Blame the stars. Just don’t blame the dead, because none of them had wished this on themselves.’

I haven’t even come near to covering everything this novel offers, but hopefully I’ve given you enough to want to find out all the rest for yourself. It really is a brilliant read, one that will stay with me for a long time.



Thanks is extended to Pan Macmillan Australia for providing me with a copy of The Pull of the Stars for review.

This as a brilliant read. At first I didn't know if I would be able to get into it as the style of writing is quite unique but I am so glad that I did keep going as it has to be one of the best books I've read this year. Scarily similar to what we are going through now with Covid, which in a way made it so relatable and understandable. This book will stay with me for some time.

I so enjoyed Room from Emma Donoghue some years ago and The Pull of the Stars is just as poignant and beautifully written. Brilliant.

Highly recommended to all.

Thank you Pan Macmillan and Netgalley.

The Pull of the Stars is not necessarily a book I would normally pick up. It’s been a while since I read any historical fiction, but I was completely and utterly swept away by this insular, remarkable story about a nurse working during the peak of the Spanish influenza and the women she attends to over the course of a few days.

The story itself is set mostly in the very intimate environment of one hospital maternity ward, consisting of three beds. At various points throughout the three days these beds are filled and emptied by the pregnant women who pass though, all under Nurse Julia’s care – alongside volunteer Bridie. There’s life, and death, and at all times the omnipotent presence of influenza and war as these women, all from different walks of life, bond together during this terrible period of history. It’s a very well researched piece of writing, with sprinkles of real life historical events and people scattered throughout. There are references to the ‘old baring better than the young’ with regards to the flu, as well as the inclusion of Dr Lynn – a real female doctor who did a lot of campaigning during and after the outbreak and war for better nutrition, housing and sanitation for her fellow citizens in Ireland. She’s a remarkable woman who I had never heard of before, and I’m incredibly grateful to the author for bringing her to my attention.

Within the novel Dr Lynn acts as a guide for Julia, reconfirming her abilities as a nurse and caregiver and giving her the confidence to help her patients within the clinical setting. Bridie, alongside this, brings out the warmer and more compassionate side of Julia. In Bridie she sees someone she could have been had her circumstances been different. A young woman without any medical training, no reading or writing skills, yet she has an innate ability to see right through people and get them to open up about their lives. She opens Julia’s eyes to what many of her patients are going through outside the walls of the hospital. Domestic and emotional abuse, mother and baby houses, rape, child death. All are discussed in relation to the time period and demonstrate just how naïve Julia really is before Bridie steps into her life. The two women are a formidable pairing.

I also really loved just how nuanced the writing is here. Donoghue managed to interweave the Spanish influenza, war and women’s roles in society and make it come alive (and more importantly make me care deeply) all within the course of 300 pages. She drip feeds bits of these real details, such as how influenza gets its name in relation to the stars, and manages to intermingle it with her story. The flu is the influence of the stars, as is love. To star crossed lovers. It’s just stunning. I will admit that at times I did struggle with the writing style. It’s a definite acquired taste, with no speech marks (in my addition, which was a proof copy so don’t hold me to this) often making it difficult to decipher who was talking. However, I soon got used to it as the pacing is so rapid and the story so investing. I also wouldn’t necessarily recommend this if you’re at all squeamish about body and medical interventions. This put me off having any more children for life.

A beautiful story that went in a direction I wasn’t expecting but utterly feel for. A singular moment in time, perfectly captured and explored. I feel the need to read more from Donoghue, as she’s a formidable talent if any of her other historical fiction is also like this.

“If anything was written in the stars, it was we who joined those dots, at least, and our lives were the writing.”

This has to be one of the best novels I’ve read in a very long time. It’s compelling, scarily intense, and fly-on-the-wall real. A book that sucks you in and holds you firmly in its grasp from cover to cover. And it steals a little piece of your heart that you’ll never get back.

Set in a Dublin hospital in the middle of the 1918 flu epidemic, The Pull of the Stars tells the story of spinster midwife Julia Power, as she fights for the lives of her patients and their babies. At Julia’s elbow is Bridie Sweeney, a volunteer from the children’s home, a young woman ‘stuck in the pipe’ of the Catholic Church’s care system.

The tiny, makeshift maternity / fever ward holds only three beds, but it is a room swollen by the giving and taking of life. The narrative — 300 pages of it — is condensed into three days, and all but a fraction of it takes place in this one, suffocating room. It is brutally gripping, like a car wreck you can’t tear your eyes from; the medical procedures morbidly fascinating in their detail. For three days, in this claustrophobic pressure chamber, time seems at once suspended and simultaneously hurtling out of control.

Mothers give birth, struggling to survive their labor and the fever. Babies are born, or stillborn, or born with imperfections. Julia and Bridie stoically do what they have to do. Then, out of the blue, the narrative slows, takes a breath. And, like the calm after the storm, you’re suddenly somewhere beautiful: a place so unexpectedly poignant, it takes your breath away. What a book, what an ending! A magnificent, impeccably researched, tour de force of a novel.

An extraordinary account of a young woman nursing in a maternity unit in Ireland at the time of the 1918 pandemic. Wonderful!

Nurse Julia Power has been placed in charge of the maternity unit in an understaffed hospital in Dublin in post-war 1918, in the midst of a pandemic.

With no one to call on to assist her in the ward, Julia finally enlists a willing volunteer called Bridie Sweeney. This young woman is an innocent, raised in the convent and oblivious to the fundamentals in nursing care. Julia patiently equips Bridie in the tasks for which she's needed and gradually they form a close bond.

When further guidance is needed, Julia calls on the enigmatic doctor, Kathleen Lynn, who is fulfilling her role while eluding the police.

It's a fraught and intense atmosphere in which to work, with death a constant presence and every decision has profound consequences.

The novel reads almost as a medical memoir with very detailed accounts of each birth and the challenges of dealing with the demands of quarantining from a pandemic.

I found it a stunning read, being completely lost in the daily, moment by moment tasks of the characters. It was an unusual read but vivid, powerful, poignant, inspiring and gripping. I loved it!