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Her heroine's character came into her mind almost immediately, while the need to recreate the historical setting in fiction spurred her to research the daily lives of average citizens and their families, 16th-century midwifery, and the plight of Jewish captives on Malta.

During a walking tour of the city's Jewish ghetto, Rich noted the crowded dwellings and narrow staircases and pondered the difficulties of living in such a sociable yet secluded environment. One of her mentors along the route to publication was novelist Joy Fielding, whose "how to write a BESTSELLER" course she took at the UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO Rich became Fielding's first student to have a book published.Ī 2007 holiday trip to Venice planted the seed that developed into The Midwife of Venice. Rich had previously written 2 unpublished novels based on her experience as a divorce LAWYER, a career she found was ripe with fascinating stories about human relationships. With her bestselling debut novel, The Midwife of Venice (2011), Roberta Rich established herself as a prominent voice in historical fiction. She divides her time between Vancouver and Colima, a small city in southwestern Mexico. Rich spent 25 years as a family law attorney in private practice in Vancouver before selling her practice in 1990, though she has been writing since her high school years. She earned an undergraduate degree in English and anthropology at the UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA and took a graduate degree in law at the same university. Born and raised in Buffalo, New York, Rich settled briefly in Rochester, New York before immigrating to Canada in the 1960s with her first husband, who had a job teaching at the UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY.

Will she be able to save the mother and the baby? And if she does, will she also be able to save herself? Woven throughout Hannah's travails in Venice is the story of Isaac and his life as a slave in Malta.Roberta Rich, novelist (born at Buffalo, New York, USA, ). Aided by her forbidden "birthing spoons" - rudimentary forceps she invented to coax reluctant babies out of their mothers' wombs - Hannah agrees to assist the nobleman and attend to his ailing wife and child. With such a handsome sum, she could save her husband, Issaac, who months earlier was captured at sea and forced into slavery in Malta by the Knights of St. Yet Hannah finds she cannot refuse the chance to make more money than she's ever seen in her whole life. Not only is it illegal for Jews to render medical treatment to Christians, it's also punishable by torture and death. But when a Christian nobleman appears at her door in the Jewish ghetto imploring her to help his wife who is dying in childbirth, Hannah's compassion is tested. "Hannah Levi is known throughout sixteenth-century Venice for her skill in midwifery.