The War Nurse by Tracey Enerson Wood sort of dragged on and I ended up having to put it down around 35% because it wasn't keeping my interest. The historical fiction elements of this are fascinating and seeing the courage of the war nurses is inspiring, but the character development was at a snail's pace and I didn't see it getting better. Sadly, I have set this one aside "for now." I may finish it letter.

Thank you NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for an e-copy of this book for review.

This is the last book I'll try from this author. She tries to stuff all her research into the book somehow which makes for stilted conversations and unnecessary detail. Also this book came out around the same time as Band of Sisters by Lauren Willig with a similar story but much better in the telling.

With all the books out there set during the Second World War, I was pleased to find this one, which takes place during the First World War. I also found it interesting that the main character is based on a real woman. The novel was well written, with accurate descriptions of the situation in France, and the character development was excellent.

The War Nurse
A Novel
by Tracey Enerson Wood
SOURCEBOOKS Landmark
You Like Them
Sourcebooks Landmark
Historical Fiction
Pub Date 07 Jul 2021 | Archive Date 11 Jul 2021

Another gripping historical fiction masterpiece by the author Tracey Enerson Wood. I really liked this book and will recommend it to our patrons. Books like this are popular and well-read at our library, Thanks to Sourcebooks Landmark and NetGalley for the ARC. Loved it.
5 stars

This story is based on the true story of Julia Stimson, Superintendent of Nurses during WWI. Julia must recruit nurses from St Louis, MO to travel to Europe to relieve the worn out and beleaguered British nurses at and near the front.

This is a wonderful enriching story of just what can be accomplished with so little. How these nurses made such a difference in the lives and well being of so many wounded soldiers.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for this advanced readers copy. This book is scheduled to release in July 2021.

The War Nurse follows Julia Stimson, an American Superintendent of Nurses based in France during WWI, as she leads around a hundred nurses at a British Base Hospital, battling with limited resources, the authority to make important decisions and a budding romance.

I love how this author always infuses so much history into her novels, focusing on real people and events and extrapolating on actions that could have happened. As such, this book is very descriptive and factual, illuminating the medical advances and prominent diseases of the time, including the Spanish influenza. Marie Curie also makes a strong appearance in this novel, as she did visit hospitals during the war to provide radiological services.

However, sometimes this book is a bit too factual in that it reads like an ongoing list of information. This is also a slow-burn of novel, so it doesn’t have a particular climax.

Overall, this is an enlightening read with enjoyable characters in an interesting time period. Especially for those that enjoy historical fiction, keep an eye out for this book hitting the shelves in July.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

For historical fiction fans you will find a lot to enjoy here. Reading about the trials and tribulations of nurses recruited into overseas service for WWI victims is illuminating and enlightening. Julia Stimson was a nurse in real life with a noble history that has been swept under the ground. She was recruited initially to lead a group of 65 nurses to a British Base hospital in Rouen, France when American soldiers had not yet joined the fray. They may had been instructed in the dreaded scenarios before they went overseas but the horror of the injuries is nothing compared to real life situations. As a nurse myself who has been in trauma settings nothing prepares you like being out in the field. Perhaps this is the reason why I was not particularly enamored of the story. I felt that it glossed over the depths of what it was like in the tents and the minutiae of the nurses' experience. I kept wanting more dimension to detail as the full extent of the horrors is not revealed. Her love affair was not a necessary angle to include as I thought it took away from the primary purpose of the story.
Although her writing did not inspire me, it was clear and written simply which many will find comfortable. For those not acquainted with the intimacies, struggles and improvisation needed in these distressing situations, there is much to be gained from immersion of this novel.

A woman must recruit 65 nurses to aid workers as America prepares to enter World War I.

Julia Stimson is the superintendent of nurses, bringing young women into a British base in France and unprepared for the primitive conditions, horrific battle wounds and undermining military doctors. Finding the women was only the first part, now they all collectively must face the horrors of war and struggle to treat their patients the best they can under terrible conditions. And then suddenly trainloads of soldiers come in with a strange respiratory illness that not only stretches them thin, but risks their very lives.

This is an interesting book on wartime nursing during a time that doesn't get featured a lot - World War I - that will definitely make all of what the nurses and soldiers struggle with a bit more real to today's audiences.

Wow, another great 5-star book by Ms. Wood. I loved the Engineer’s Wife and was so excited to be allowed an ARC of The War Nurse. This author is going into my top favorite authors, her research is impeccable and her storytelling is so well done.
This story makes you feel as if you are right there with Julia in the hospital taking care of her patients, training her nurses. I loved that she researched WWI and comparing our Covid now to how they handled the influenza back then was remarkable. I cannot imagine the dedication and bravery these women had in order to sign up and offer themselves to go into the war environment. Unsung heroes they were.
I thank her for writing this and I will read everything else she writes. Well done!! I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
I want to thank Sourcebooks Landmark along with NetGalley for allowing me the opportunity to read an ARC. Comes in with the highest 5 stars..

The description of this book was livelier and more intriguing that the book itself. The topic was interesting, the role of women in the medical corps during the war was interesting. There was great potential here but the book read more like “just the facts” nonfiction.

1917-18, WW1, nursing, combat, historical-novel, historical-places-events, historical-research, history-and-culture, family, France, friendship, relationships*****

Julia Stinson was a real person with the kind of background and experiences portrayed in this book of fictionalized history. She was as real as Barnes Hospital, The Great War, the American Red Cross, and The US Army Nurse Corps. This book brings her story to light even as it demonstrates how far (and not) nursing (and warfare) have come in the last one hundred years. The publisher's blurb does a good job of preparing the reader for what's to come, so there is no need for me to further summarize. I really enjoyed the read.
This is not exactly an unbiased review as I retired from nursing after nearly fifty years.
I requested and received a free temporary ebook copy from SOURCEBOOKS Landmark via NetGalley. Thank you!

I enjoyed reading this book and learning a bit about what life was like during World War One. Thank especially love how it tells a, supposed, accounting an amazing female who accomplished great things. That said I did find some parts of this book moved a bit slowly and was hard to get into. That said overall a good book.

THE WAR NURSE is a gripping historical fiction gem based on the true story of American Julia Stimson, Nurse Superintendent at an active WWI field hospital in France.

I was fascinated by how Julia and her staff saved lives near active battle grounds, innovating with new techniques to deal with wounds, infections, and the impact of the new Spanish Flu. How prescient the ties in the story between the Flu Pandemic then and COVID today.

I loved how the author’s meticulous research was woven throughout the fictive elements. Her descriptions ring with truth, and Julia is developed so fully that you care deeply about her, especially as she falls in love with surgeon Fred Murphy. Poignant and inspiring, this is a must-read for fans of WWI hist fic and brave women changing the world.

Pub Date 07 Jul 2021
#TheWarNurse #NetGalley

Thanks to the author, Sourcebooks Landmark, and NetGalley for the review copy. Opinions are mine.

The War Nurse covers the transition of a nurse manager from her St. Louis hospital all the way to serving as the Matron nurse in France during WWI. Julia, based on a real life nurse, is a smart, tall, and passionate woman who had a interest in medicine but as a woman was denied access to that profession. However, she found her own way into healthcare through nursing, and was able to use her wit and work ethic to make transformations that impacted both those she worked with, patients they care for, and the overall healthcare system provided during World War I.

As a nurse myself, I truly connected to this book on multiple levels. First of all, it reads in a voice and style that feels very true to a nurse. If it were from the point of view of a character that was a different profession, I might have felt like the style was kind of short or choppy, BUT as I read it I thought "Yes- this truly feels true to an academic nurse!" I was amazed at how many of Julia's struggles from the 1920s still exist in the profession today. Reading this was not only entertaining, but also helpful to think about how far nursing has come in some ways, but also how far the profession has to go in others. It also was exciting to read about such a strong nurse acting as an advocate, and thinking about where is that passion and dedication needed now, and what difference could that make.

As a nursing professor and someone who works in administration, I really enjoyed this fictionalized story based on people and events from WWI. It was refreshing to read a book that honored the women who served, and also to read about WWI as so much of historical fiction focuses on WWII. I definitely will recommend to others!

Thank you to Tracey Enerson Wood, #NetGalley, and Sourcebooks Landmark for the advanced copy of The War Nurse in exchange for an honest review.

St. Louis, 1917. Julia Stimson is a Superintendent of Nurses at the School of Medicine. The school “was identified by the Red Cross as a base hospital, to be activated in the event of an emergency.” That emergency has arrived. Julia has to recruit “enough qualified nurses willing to give up their lives and embark on an unknowable journey.” Unnecessarily worried, she is overwhelmed with the response of so many young women willing to take that journey. The Great War throws “together people from different backgrounds and cultures like never before.”

Once in Rouen, France, her skills are put into a true test. The hospital her team is assigned to is supposed to be “staffed for five hundred patients, not thirteen hundred.” She needs to figure out how to be efficient in the best possible way, by scheduling skillfully nurses, “setting up a system of a day shift and a night shift, with leaders for each, (…) based on their experience, strength, and compatibilities.”

Beginning of the year 1918, there are more and more patients appearing with questionable symptoms. Some guess it’s “respiratory distress of undisclosed nature.” As more of those uninjured soldiers with flu symptoms appear, the heroine’s skills and creativity come into play again.

This story is concentrated on the work of the nurses and with detailed descriptions it gives a good sense of what it means to be a nurse during WWI and at the time when nursing is not a career path yet. It is textured with historical facts and people that add interesting depth to the story. For example, Rouen is known for production of wool and cotton which the heroine uses to make protective masks when influenza strikes; or appearance of Marie Curie and heroine consulting with the expert on X-rays.

This novel brings a strong female heroine who dreamed of becoming a physician, like her uncle, but that was not to be for a woman of her time. With someone’s guidance, she takes the path of becoming a nurse, which fits her personality and where she finds fulfillment and enjoyment. She comes from a privileged family, but was always encouraged to make a difference, to accomplish something important in life. She sets high standards for herself and for the nurses she is responsible for. With her strong will and perseverance she forges ahead with her own way of doing things, figuring out regular routines. And when a crises strikes, she is equipped with knowledge and experience to figure some ways how to handle it.

Written with great depth of knowledge and woven with attention-grabbing facts and figures, thus creating a fascinating story about a woman known as one of the pioneers forging nursing as a profession.

P.S. Highly recommend the author’s debut novel The Engineer’s Wife.

Review originally posted at mysteryandsuspense.com

I found The War Nurse fascinating. It’s based on the true story of Julia Stimson, RN, an administration and teaching nurse at Barnes hospital in St.Louis. She was asked in 1917 to recruit and train a group of nurses to serve on the American Red Cross medical team in France, as America prepared to enter WW1.

The story began with Julia describing her life and work in St.Louis, which seemed a little dull, but picked up quickly once she began recruiting her team of nurses. The author brought this historical character to life with details of setting up a medical hospital for soldiers, the challenges the nurses faced and Julia Stimson’s clever determination to observe practices and seek improvements.

I appreciated the research that went into this book, and I enjoyed the author’s notes at the end where she shared the historical facts of this story.

Advanced reader copy courtesy of the publishers at NetGalley for review.

THE WAR NURSE
BY TRACEY ENERSON WOOD

I was super excited to read, "THE WAR NURSE," because I really loved Tracey Enerson Wood's debut novel called, "THE ENGINEER"S WIFE." "The Engineer's Wife," was fascinating to me because before reading it I had no idea about the true story about Emily Roebling, who helped design and build one of today's lasting monument's-the Brooklyn Bridge. This is Tracey Enerson Wood's second historical fiction book based on a factual other strong female in our past but this time it takes place during World War I, in Rouen, France about the superintendent of nurses, Julia Stimson.

I am under the impression that Ms. Wood enjoys meticulously researching strong and capable female icons. I was struck how similar the setting was back then with the pandemic of the Spanish Influenza infecting and killing millions by first being for the purposes of the narrative being highly contagious and the wearing of masks. It is eery in the book how it has been for us with the Corona virus.

Julia Stimson wanted to be a physician and her father and Uncle who was a surgeon wouldn't hear of it. She truly loved the nurses that she had handpicked to travel to Rouen, France that worked under her. She was passionate about herself helping to relieve the British at the site where her and her nurses took their places when America entered the war. She treated the nurse's that she oversaw and directed as tenderly as she cared for the wounded in their makeshift hospitals that were tents.

The novel begins with her working as a nurse in St. Louis, Missouri in April, during the year 1917. She is thinking that perhaps God had made a mistake and wished her to be a man. She was taller than most women and had the wide shoulder's to carry the world's burdens but was blessed with the sensibilities, strengths and courage of a woman through and through. She was the chief of nurses at Barnes Hospital in St. Louis for three years before being promoted to superintendent of nurses and head of nursing training at the affiliated Washington University.

Her responsibilities were for every aspect of nursing at the university hospital where she directed recruitment and training to policies and procedures. She frequently coordinated with the heads of other departments and worked very hard on staying up to date on new treatments and practices. During which time she also was handling all of the duties of a dean for the nurse training program. Washington University had the finest doctor's on the cutting edge when dealing with cardiac and facial surgeries. Julia was thirty-six years old and had never been married and I was struck by how devoted to her job that she was.

Her School of Medicine was identified by the Red Cross as a base hospital to be activated in the case of an emergency. It was during this time that a telegram came from Washington DC. asking if her unit could travel to Europe and how soon could she be ready to go? The Red Cross's answer to the surgeon general was that the medical unit of the hospital would be ready to go in six week's time Central and up front was the importance of nurses arriving before the American troops. Julia Stimson needed to find sixty-five nurses and she accepted and handpicked sixty-four nurses by inviting qualified staff and by interviewing applicant's that responded from advertisements put in the newspaper and poster's both locally and nationally.

The nurses would need training for injuries they would have had less experience dealing with such as severe burns, amputations and shell shock. Ms. Julia Stimson managed to be up for the task and for six weeks she trained sixty-four nurses who she broke down to squadrons of eight sort of like the military. They traveled by train to Grand Central terminal and they boarded a ship that sailed from the port of New York City.

This book explores how the nurses relieved the tired and war famished British nurses in Rouen, Normandy, France. It doesn't get into anything graphic but the nurses cared for the wounded soldier's and Marie Curie makes a couple of visits to their encampment to assist with improving the X-ray's. By then she had been awarded her Nobel prize and her husband Pierre was deceased. Julia gets into a close relationship with one of the widowed doctor's named Dr. Murphy. He wants to take things to the next level but Julia always professional is afraid of gossip and she is so devoted to her work that although she falls in love the relationship stays as it is--just two people trying to get through the war until she gets a post in Paris. Her brother Philip gets wounded with shrapnel in his back and he helps out when the soldier's become sick from the Spanish influenza. He is a pediatrician who recovers in their station and he has a background in infectious diseases. Julia and Philip both get promotions to a new posting in Paris.

This was an interesting novel that I enjoyed but I think that I loved her debut novel better. It is not to say that her first book was better because that is not the case. Personally, for me I have probably read too many World War II books in the past couple of years. This being about the Great War was a welcome relief and respite but I found the Emily Roebling story taking place in New York and her helping to build and design a monument such as the Brooklyn Bridge to be a topic of more learning for me. Both Emily Roebling and Julia Stimson are both iconic women who strove to meet their individual challenges with a sense of honor and they both are strong and independent women. I think that this book will appeal to mostly an audience of women who enjoy historical fiction based on factual people. I would recommend this to women who like strong female protagonists who use their lives to helping others. I look forward to reading what Tracey Enerson Wood decides to write about next and wish her the best of luck. She has a fan that is me and I found this to be a quick and easy read that can be accomplished in one sitting.

Publication Date: July 7, 2021

My huge thanks to Net Galley, Tracey Enerson Wood and to SOURCEBOOKS Landmark for generously providing me with my ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.

#TheWarNurse #TraceyEnersonWood #SOURCEBOOKSLandmark #NetGalley

Such an extraordinary book! Set in WW1 France!
This would make an amazing history read for high schools!
I very much enjoyed reading and actually learning a little more!
Wonderful writing as well!

After the US joined the allies in World War One, they first Americans in France were the doctors and nurses sent to relieve the beleaguered British in the field hospitals near the front. Nurse Julia Stimpson is selected to lead the nursing staff at one of these field hospitals and recruit 65 nurses to join her.

This well researched novel is based on the life of a real person and the historical events are all factual. Julia Stimpson was a leader in the early 20th century nursing profession, and the challenges of battlefield nursing and the rise of the spanish flu towards the end of the war are described clearly. Details about her personal life are speculative making it difficult to know when the facts end and the fiction begins. This might have been more successful as a biography of a pioneering woman with the speculation left behind.

Being in the medical profession myself, I always am very excited to see my two passions (medicine and history) combined into historical fiction. Sometimes its good - sometimes its not. But gratefully, this was really great! I admire the author's research into them medical profession at that time, and how battle wounds were treated, etc. historical accuracy is very important to me, and I think she did a good job. The characterization was pretty good, and I didn't know where the book was going, so I liked that I was surprised. Overall, I really enjoyed this and recommend it.