Woven into the lives of Florence Nightingale who came from a well-to-do family she is frequently referred to as Miss N, are also Jean Frawley a nurse and Silas Bradley a soldier.

While en-route to the hospital, Scuteri, during the  Crimean War, Miss N, Miss Frawley and a contingent of nurses spend some time in Marseilles in France awaiting the ship that will take them to their hospital destination. They meet Silas Bradley who appears to be a kind, personable soldier who is making his way back home to England after serving in the War. Although relationships between soldiers and nurses are frowned upon, or rather not allowed by Miss N, of course one develops between Jean Frawley and Silas Bradley. It is one that both will hold dear for many years to come.

Chapters are written with the perspective swapping between each of the characters with Mabel featuring during conversations with Silas when he visits  frail Miss N in the hopes of finding Jean Frawley after many years.They had swapped their London addresses but did not find each other on their return.

Silas tries to remind Miss N that she and Jean Frawley nursed him back to life and health after his return to the war in Crimea where he was seriously wounded. So serious were his wounds they thought he had died and was sent to the Dead House. The story around this period is detailed, moving, loving and heartbreaking, wonderfully told by the author. I had to pause and look up the weapon that caused these horrific injuries which were designed and made in France.

The conditions of the injured soldiers who were sent to the hospital are quite graphically described, and for someone quite squeamish, frankly they made me squirm a few times. However, they are an important part of the story and the facts of War and conditions in this era.

Nightingale had firm and fast rules about nursing and what was best for the patients, no doubt earning her, her revered reputation that lives to this day.

A book well worth reading for those who enjoy history and a novel based on true events.

The Author

Laura Elvery lives in Brisbane. She has a PhD in Creative Writing and Literary Studies. Her work has been published in Overland, Griffith Review, Meanjin, Kill Your Darlings, Island and The Big Issue. She has won the Josephine Ulrick Prize for Literature, the Margaret River Short Story Competition, the Neilma Sidney Short Story Prize and the Fair Australia Prize for Fiction. In 2018 Laura’s first collection of short stories, Trick of the Light, was a finalist in the Queensland Literary Awards. Laura’s latest short story collection, Ordinary Matter, won the 2021 Steele Rudd Award for a Short Story Collection and was shortlisted for the Queensland Premier's Award for a Work of State Significance and the 2022 Barbara Jefferis Award.