Medical Historical Fiction

Anna is over the moon when her sweetheart returns from the front line. As he recovers from his injuries, they make plans to be married, but the horrors of the trenches cast a long shadow. Caring for shell-shocked soldiers brings untold challenges for Grace, and her parents have very different dreams for her future. Meanwhile Dulcie has her sights firmly set on her own happy ending. And yet sometimes we find love where we least expect to. Each of the nurses has her own battle to fight, but they must rally together if they’re to find true happiness.

For the district nurses of Victory Walk, there's been little time to bask in the triumph of D-day as London is facing a new threat - the buzz bombs. Everyone is terrified, never knowing where the next one will strike. Into this tense atmosphere, new nurse Iris must make her mark. She’s had more experience of nursing than many, but since arriving in East London from the countryside, she has struggled to fit in with the other staff. Meanwhile, Alice is facing an agonising wait to hear if her boyfriend, Joe, has survived D-day.

An emotional portrayal of the lives of four women as Valentine’s day approaches, in 1941 wartime London ‘Life brought enough problems and upsets for young hearts, especially young female hearts, without them having to carry the added burden of the war….’ Tilly is passionately in love with the dashing American journalist, Drew. But he is harbouring a secret that threatens their burgeoning love.

Liverpool, 1855. Ada Houston is alone. Her grandfather has recently passed away, and her brother is missing, last seen working on the Liverpool docks. Everyone assumes him to be dead. But she will not give up hope. Ada's determined search takes her to the Crimea, where she joins the team of Florence Nightingale's nurses. She may have set off looking for her brother, but along the way Ada finds friends, romance and a new purpose in her own life in the most troubling and difficult of places.

A young medical student named Fettes is assisting his professor in procuring cadavers to be dissected by his fellow students. He knows many of the bodies that are sold to him were stolen from graves - but he needs his job and keeps his silence. To remain silent, however, is to invite worse trouble. Late one night there is a knock at the door and another cadaver is delivered to Fettes - one he recognizes. It's Jane Galbraith, a woman Fettes had seen alive and well only a day before.

In Brooklyn in 1899, Dr. Noah Whitestone is called urgently to his wealthy neighbor's house to treat a five-year-old boy with a shocking set of symptoms. When the child dies suddenly later that night, Noah is accused by the boy's regular physician - the powerful and politically connected Dr. Arnold Frias - of prescribing a lethal dose of laudanum. To prove his innocence, Noah must investigate the murder - for it must be murder - and confront the man he is convinced is the real killer.

Fourteenth-century physician Alejandro Guzman, caught performing an autopsy in Spain, flees across Europe at the time of the Black Death to escape execution for his heretical deed. When he arrives in the Papal city of Avignon, he is conscripted against his will to serve as a Plague Doctor in the court of England's Edward III. Unfolding in a dramatic counterpoint is the story of American medical archaeologist Janie Crowe, in England at the turn of the 21st century to recover from the tragic loss of her family.

It's 1957, and three young women are beginning their nursing training at the Florence Nightingale Hospital in London's East End. Winne desperately wants to win her mother's approval - but will following in her footsteps and becoming a nurse help? Tearaway Viv has never been one to follow the rules, though the Nightingale may help her mend her ways. Beth is following her late sister's dream by training as a nurse. Will it be the right path for her? There's a steep learning curve ahead. But with friendship on their side, the Nightingale Daughters are ready to rise to the challenge.

After serving as a nurse in the Crimea, British-born Celia Davies left her privileged family for an impulsive marriage to a handsome Irishman. Patrick brought her to San Francisco's bustling shores but then disappeared and is now presumed dead. Determined to carry on, Celia partners with her half-Chinese cousin, Barbara, and her opinionated housekeeper, Addie, to open a free medical clinic for women who have nowhere else to turn.

During the last desperate days of the Vietnam War, American soldier Israel Broussard is assigned to a secret CIA PSYOP far behind enemy lines meant to drive terror into the heart of the North Vietnamese and end an unwinnable war. When the mission goes sideways, Broussard is plunged into a nightmare he soon finds he is unable to escape, dragging a remnant of that night in the Laotian wilderness with him no matter how far he runs. 

Neither is his young assistant, Abigail Platford, immune to Dr. Rome's persuasive charm. Abigail once dreamed of becoming a doctor, though of a much different sort. That dream ended with her father's tragic death from a medical error for which she holds herself responsible. But Dr. Rome, who proudly displays his medical degree from Johns Hopkins, seems to believe in her. If he were willing to act as her mentor, might there still be a chance to fulfill her dream of someday becoming a doctor serving New York City's poor?

When Rachel qualifies as nurse, she does so because she wants to help others and make a difference. But she is also running from a past life that must stay hidden forever. Completing her training, Rachel moves to London but misses home desperately, so when she hears about an opportunity to train as a district nurse in a village near Rochdale, she seizes the opportunity, even though it will take her closer to the trouble she left behind. She knows nothing about Eastby End and she is shocked to find it a little more than a slum.

It is 1950 and Kitty Longthorne is now a Sister at Manchester's Park Hospital, and as busy as ever. With dizzying numbers of children with polio being admitted to the children's ward, a sharp uptick of major trauma from road accidents and growing political and racial conflict affecting her patients and staff, there's no shortage of drama at the hospital. But Kitty is determined that everyone is treated with respect.

The Sherlockian Canon, as prolific as it is, contains few accounts in which Mr. Holmes and his medical colleagues Doctors Watson and Verner solve cases involving frightening medical conditions. It strikes me that many more such cases were successfully solved by Mr. Holmes and his associates. It is unlikely that Doctors Watson and Verner would allow such mysteries remain unsolved. 

Claire Shipley is a single mother haunted by the death of her young daughter and by her divorce years ago. She is also an ambitious photojournalist, and in the anxious days after Pearl Harbor, the talented Life magazine reporter finds herself on top of one of the nation's most important stories.

A newly minted graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Medical School in 1890, Dr. Thomas Parks heads to the big timber country of Puget Sound to practice trauma medicine. An hour after stepping off the boat, he's nearly crushed to death by a less-than-sure-footed mule and finds himself a patient rather than a physician. As he convalesces, he discovers that his host, a venerable physician friend of his father's, is running an elaborate medical scam, selling worthless concoctions nationwide, with enormous sales.

Connie Byrne, a nurse in London's East End working alongside Millie Sullivan from Call Nurse Millie, is planning her wedding to Charlie Ross, set to take place as soon as he returns from the war. But when she meets him off the train at London Bridge, she finds that his homecoming isn't going to go according to plan. Connie's busy professional life, and the larger-than-life patients in the district, offer a welcome distraction, but for how long?

After defying her husband during the war, Virginia plantation wife Iris Dunleavy is deemed insane and taken to Sanibel Asylum to receive treatments for her unruliness. There she meets another “broken” soul - Confederate soldier Ambrose Weller - and falls in love with him.

Gabriella Mondini is a rarity in 16th-century Venice: a woman who practices medicine. Her father, a renowned physician, has provided her entrée to this all-male profession, and inspired in her a shared mission to understand the secrets of the human body. Then her father disappears, and Gabriella faces a crisis: She is no longer permitted to treat her patients, women who need her desperately, without her father's patronage. She sets out across Europe to find where - and why - he has gone.

In the fourteenth century, opportunities for women are limited to the home. But spirited young Madlen finds her calling as assistant to the city's trusted midwife, Clara. Working alongside Clara, Madlen develops a surprisingly soothing technique and quickly becomes a talented healer. After Clara's tragic death, Madlen alone rushes to assist the birth of a local nobleman's child. But rather than the joy of birth, Madlen walks into an accusation of murder and witchcraft because of her extraordinary gifts. Forced to flee her own town, she establishes a new identity in the home of her aunt.