By Rebecca Marsh (pseud. William Neubauer), ©1966Cover illustration by Darrell Greene  When pretty Dorothy Malloy left Buttrick Hospital to become wealthy Andrew Bossart’s private nurse, her orderly world changed overnight. Young and handsome, Andrew Bossart was recovering from an accidental gunshot wound. His reputation as a dangerous ladies’ man made some people wonder if the shot had been an accident after all … Despite Dorothy’s determination to remain uninvolved, she was too attractive a girl to escape Bossart’s attention—and too good a nurse to ignore the needs of her patient. Befor ..read more

By Virginia B. McDonnell, ©1964 Cover illustration by Lou Marchetti Inga Larsen, showing a newborn babe to its father, a baby she had helped to deliver …Inga Larsen, soaring through the air on ice skates amid the gasps of thrilled spectators …Which was she, student nurse or rink champion? And which was the right man for her? Scott Marshall, ice-skating master, idol of her childhood, or Dr. Thor Eriksen, whom she had secretly loved for three years? Inga Larsen just did not know, and both men were not making it any easier for her to find out! GRADE: C REVIEW:One of my absolute least-favorite tro ..read more

By Virginia McCall, ©1968  Lieut. Tracy Moore is shocked to discover that on her first sea assignment she is the only nurse aboard a naval transport sailing to the Far East. Trouble starts happening in sick bay immediately. Several emergencies—including an operation for appendicitis during a typhoon—test Tracy’s skill to its fullest. Tested too is Tracy’s love for Dick Simpson, the biologist she left behind. For on shipboard she meets and is attracted to handsome Lieut. Wade Cochran, who makes no secret of the fact that he is falling in love with her. With her superior officers watching h ..read more

By William Neubauer, ©1957 Dawn March had her future all planned—she would marry handsome Dr. Ken Jones and they would settle in the little seacoast community that she loved and build a happy and beautiful life together. But Dawn hadn’t figured on a couple of interferences that became substantial obstacles to the realization of her dream. The first was Ken himself. There was a side of his nature that Dawn was slow to recognize, that shocked her when she did. Ken fancied himself a big-time success, and his impatient ambition was such that it left little room for the kind of life that Dawn had ..read more

By Kate Norway (pseud. Olive Norton), ©1969 Staff Nurse Didi Jones was torn between enthusiasm for her interesting new job and the feeling that she ought to be “settling down” as her fiancé wanted. But would there have been any problem, if she had really cared about him? GRADE: B+ BEST QUOTES:“I don’t know how you dare to argue with that woman. She terrifies me. I go all hemiplegic at the sight of her.”  “The way to a man’s heart isn’t through his stomach anymore. It’s through his twin carburetors or his new putter, old dear. You’re not with it.” “Depression in a young woman of under twe ..read more

By Valerie K. Nelson, ©1964 From what her dear friend Jeremy had told her, Nurse Jane Ashley had the worst possible opinion of his cousin Paul. What a hard, managing old man he must be, she thought, to try and force Jeremy to study for a career which did not interest him. “Sometimes you remind me of Paul,” Jeremy told her. “Like him, you’re fifty years behind the times. It’s that hospital and all those Florence Nightingale sentiments. I must get you away from it, double quick.” Then, Nurse Jane met Paul—and began to think that, if he was fifty years behind the times, it was not a bad place to ..read more

By Anne Durham, ©1965Cover illustration by Bern Smith Everyone at Ripplegate General Hospital was tremendously excited when the film star Dawn Delaney was admitted as a patient—everyone, that is, except Nurse Nina Rivers, who knew Dawn only too well and dreaded the complications she would inevitably bring with her. GRADE: B+ BEST QUOTES:“She’d be a proper corker out of that horrible uniform.”  “No one looks at a nurse unless she’s doing something to attract attention.” REVIEW:|Nurse Nina Rivers has made a life for herself apart from her family; she comes from a fairly broken home. Her fa ..read more

By Rose Dana(pseud. William E. Daniel Ross), ©1967 Beautiful Nurse Mavis Eaton had come to the quiet seacoast town to develop another talent: painting. But she was soon deeply enmeshed in a strange and terrifying struggle that involved a handsome young doctor and a brilliant mysterious stranger. GRADE: B- BEST QUOTES:“I declare that half of my practice is tending to summer incompetents. They come down here and stay out in the sun until they’re boiled lobster red, work in their gardens until they get heart attacks, overeat and get every kind of gastrointestinal complication imaginable! I wonde ..read more

Hello again, and welcome back to our annual roundup of the best vintage nurse novels of the year! The most significant win goes to Bill Neubauer, whose Best Book award this year gives him the most of anyone in that category, with an amazing seven! (You can now buy a number of the Best Books as ebooks republished by my company Nurse Novels Publishing, which is just celebrating its first anniversary!) My perennial nemesis Peggy Gaddis also captured her seventh award—but for Worst Book, so the distinction is less laudable, but why not pop a champagne cork for her as well? We are greeted by a num ..read more

By Betty Neels,  ©1971 It hadn’t taken Julia long to fall in love with Ivo van den Werff—but she had better fall out of love equally quickly, she decided, when she met Marcia Jason and realized just how much stronger a claim the other girl had on Ivo’s affection. GRADE: A- BEST QUOTES:“That’s what you’re for—to see that I don’t die in a coma.” “I, being a man of leisure, am the obvious one to sacrifice on the altar of frostbite and exposure.” REVIEW:This is the first book I have read written by romance queen Betty Neels, who published more than 130 romance novels starting in 1969 wh ..read more