The Nightingale Sisters by Donna Douglas

Nurses Training -- 1930s style

I am really enjoying this romantic historical fiction set in London during the mid 1930s. In this second book of the Nightingale series, we continue to follow Dora, Millie and Helen as they begin another year of nurses training in Bethnal Green. A new character is introduced, the mysterious and secretive Violet Tanner, who is hired on as Night Sister for the Nightingale Hospital.

The young nurses are still learning new procedures as they try to improve their skills and abilities under the watchful, and often very critical, eyes of the ward sisters. I find the details of this training to be quite interesting as I'm a nurse myself and experienced a far different sort of educational process! Their days are quite long and hard, and often there's not much to be done for the patients as medical science is not very advanced at this time and place.

As in the last book, the three trainees have difficulty with their families and love lives, trying to balance their own ambition with the expected behavior of females at the time.

I can't wait to start the next -- The Nightingale Nurses -- as the three begin their final year of training!

In order:
The Nightingale Girls (Nightingales)
The Nightingale Sisters (Nightingales)
The Nightingale Nurses (Nightingales)
Nightingales on Call