Nightingale Nurses and Nightingale Sisters

The Nightingale Sisters: (Nightingales 2)

About the Book:

To the student nurses at The Nightingale hospital, the ward sisters are heartless and frightening, with impossibly high standards. But the sisters have troubles of their own...

Violet

The new night sister is not all that she seems. Who is she and what dark secret is she hiding? As the mystery deepens, Sister Wren is determined to find out the truth.

Dora

The student nurse is struggling with her own secret, and with her heartbreak over Nick, the man who got away. A new arrival on the ward brings the chance to put a smile back on her face. But can she really get over Nick so easily?

Millie

Dora's fellow student is also torn between the two men in her life. But then an unexpected friendship with an elderly patient makes her question where her heart - and her future - really lies.

As the nation mourns the death of King George V, it seems as if nothing is ever going to be the same again, especially for the women at the Nightingale.

The Nightingale Nurses: (Nightingales 3)

About the Book:

'Pay attention please, nurses. The next six months will be the most important of your lives'

It's the final year of training for three young nurses at The Nightingale Hospital.  Helen is at a crossroads in her life as she battles with her domineering mother over both her love life and her future career.  Dora can't stop loving Nick, who is married to her best friend, Ruby. But Ruby is hiding a dark secret with the potential to destroy Ruby's marriage.  Millie is anxious about her fiance, sent to Spain to cover the Civil War, and things only get worse when she encounters a fortune teller who gives her a sinister warning.  With war looming in Europe, and the East End of London squaring up to the threat of Oswald Mosley's blackshirts, the women of the Nightingale have to face their own challenges, at work and in love.

My Comments:

These books are volumes two and three in the soap operaish saga of student nurses and others in a London hospital in the 1930's.  Like any good soap opera these stories include love, deception, romance, hatred, violence and violation and characters whose lives intertwine in ways they would never imagine.  These books are also a fascinating look at London in the 1930's, both the medical aspect (which I find especially interesting) and the general society.  

I'd like to thank the publisher for making review copies available via NetGalley.  Grade:  B.