Really good story i could not put it down Surprisingly enjoyable, bearing in mind that I only bought it because it was reduced and about nursing! It's a lot better than the cover leads one to believe, and quite educational about the second world war.
Far from being a simple romance about a nurse in wartime it covers a lot of interesting ground, including the first use of plastic surgery and the early introduction of antibiotics.
My eyes even got a little damp reading about the miracle that antibiotics brought to so many at that time, Time taken to readdays on and off
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Blurb from Goodreads
Attractive, clever and wilful, Lily Knowles is desperate to leave home.
So at twentyone she escapes to London to train as a nurse, where she gathers many admirers none more dashing than RAF officer Sandy Redfern, with whom she falls in love.
But the coming of war, with the chaos of the Blitz, brings upheavals and unforeseen entanglements, On hearing of Sandy's reckless affair with a married woman, a heartbroken Lily throws herself into her work, Then further changes in circumstances bring her to a busy RAF hospital in Hampshire, where a faithful childhood sweetheart persuades her to become engaged to him,
And then fate brings Sandy Redfern back into her life, physically scarred by burns and inwardly embittered, What of their once passionate love and her present commitment Can the past ever be recaptured
My
Lily Knowles is our main character, introduced to her inas a little girl and quickly moving on as she fast approaches her twenty first birthday.
Lily wants away from home, the scruffy children, her father and step mother and runs toward her grandparents and a career in nursing, She meets RAF officer Sandy Redfern and finds herself torn between her career and putting Sandy first, particularly now the war is upon them, The tale goes across war time and a chance conversation presents an opportunity to revisit her lost love or finally get some closure,
Ugh, Lily is an infuriating character that I liked and hated in almost equal measures, A selfish young fool of a girl who embarks on a career of nursing, then the war starts and Lily is forced to grow up,
She goes through quite a journey of self exploration and growth, the writing draws you in to experience the emotions young Lily endures and has to process,
Not only is this a story of personal growth, love, relationships, families amp war, it also delves into some history, I love a book where I learn a little something as well as enjoying the story for what it is, the author has done her homework and details of nursing procedures, medical advances/developments at the time as well as events of war.
This was my first time reading this author and I would absolutely read her again, I plan on looking up her other titles,/for me this time, It's fine and I enjoyed reading it, But you can almost hear the turning of the pages of the history book that the author has used to reference every detail of the war, The characters somehow were all fully aware of everything that what happening on a global scale and better yet they were anticipating it, Also Lily isn't a very nice person but the author just loves her, "Attractive, cleaver and wilful", this girl is just full of her own self importance and stomps on those who don't meet her inflated expectations,.stars
This is a hood war time fiction book, Attractive, clever and wilful, Lily Knowles is desperate to leave home, So at twentyone she escapes to London to train as a nurse, where she gathers many admirers none more dashing than RAF officer Sandy Redfern, with whom she falls in love.
But the coming of war, with the chaos of the Blitz, brings upheavals and unforeseen entanglements, On hearing of Sandy's reckless affair with a married woman, a heartbroken Lily throws herself into her work, Then further changes in circumstances bring her to a busy RAF hospital in Hampshire, where a faithful childhood sweetheart persuades her to become engaged to him,
And then fate brings Sandy Redfern back into her life, physically scarred by burns and inwardly embittered, What of their once passionate love and her present commitment Can the past ever be recaptured A slow starter, and a main character that I don't think I really liked.
but, a great story. I wanted it to end differently, but the ending was great, It tied up all of the loose ends, if somewhat abruptly, It also has a lot of history involved which I love, Good story. Good historical research included
Hmmm, Scratches cheek in deep thought
The problem is that in recent times I've read books by some very good writers, Now, I know it's not fair to compare a novel like this to more 'literary' works, but my overall feeling is the standard of writing here is pretty amateurish.
The reason I read this was out of an interest in the time period and the subject matter from that standpoint, there are some good nuggets of historical detail.
Though, on the other hand, from an authorial point of view, some of them are thrown in unnecessarily, But on the whole, I think the level of medical, military and general war research is to be commended,
A big problem is that the book is far too long, If it had been tightened up by decent editing, the book could have been half the length, This shouldn't have been apage novel, Something that sticks out and irked me was the dialogue, Much of the dialogue is of the "Oh my dear, goodness me!" variety, Basically, many of the conversations are cheesy, cliched and corny, You could make Doritos out of this stuff,
I'm not really sure what sort of market this is aimed at perhaps the Romance audience maybe in this case, none of the above objections really are pertinent.
Perhaps the author is giving the readership what it wants, I don't know,
For me, while some of the period detail was interesting, I found the story quite dull I notice this when my mind keeps wandering, and it was a slog to keep pushing through.
Again, I would really only recommend this to people with a fascination for the war on the home front, nursing, etc, I have always been interested in war times and the stories that are based around the second World War, thoroughly enjoyed this novel, would like to expand my comfort zone of romance novels to more historical/fiction novels.
Lily should have married Tim, dunno what she saw in this stupid Sandy bloke, pffff, disappointed. But aside from that it was a pleasant read, Unfortunately I found the main character relatively annoying, and pretty much every single decision she made was borne out of a calamity she suddenly faced, It was more a reaction to the situation than a genuine decision in my opinion, I have to admit that I liked this book a lot, even though I've read it for so long, My native tongue isn't English, so it was sometimes a little bit hard to get through, I loved the story. It contains many hard subject, characters are well made and I liked the plod, It didn't turned out as I wanted it to be, but it stuck me to the book and urged me to read,
I love that kind of stories, war, romance but the book wasn't all about affairs which I also enjoyed, friendship, family problems and many more, An interesting thing was also getting to know a little bit about medicine in those days,
At last, I really enjoyed it and I would recommend it, Also wrote under the name Maggie Bennett, .
Obtain A Nurse At War Created By Maggie Holt Issued As File
Maggie Holt