While it had a bit of a slow start/setup as we got to know Una Kelly, a cunning pickpocket turned nurse trainee in 1880's New York City. I loved the historical nursing aspects and fascinating detail, with the layers of mystery, love, and class in that time period. I recommend this book for historical fiction fans!

I loved this authors first book and her second one was even better!!!!!!!! Amanda Skenandore has a dynamic career in historical fiction in my opinion.

Interesting glimpse into life in the 1880’s world of medicine, and the nursing program at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. I liked Una and I enjoyed the relationship that developed between Una and Dru. I really wanted Una to succeed in the training program; she certainly bloomed as she discovered her gifts.
Advanced reader copy courtesy of the publishers at NetGalley for review.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that I am a sucker for a nurse heroine - and if it's a nurse who is wily and cunning with secrets to hide? Gimme, gimme, gimme. The Nurse's Secret by Amanda Skenandore tells the story of Una Kelly, a pickpocket working the streets of New York City, under the thumb of a pawn broker / fence. And while Una owes the woman for taking her off the streets and teaching her a trade (well, of sorts) Una is at the point where she wants freedom. Unfortunately her bid for freedom leads to Una witnessing a murder. As if that weren't unsettling enough? The cops catch up to Una fairly quickly and think she murdered the victim in that dark alley. Una's boss, having now discovered Una's plan to break free, is not about to stick her neck out for a disloyal "employee." Una is on her own - which means it's a good thing she's resourceful.

Una ends up extricating herself from the cops and her immediate concern is staying hidden until they move along and give up on the case. Her brilliant idea? Bellevue Hospital has just opened a state of the art nursing school. Only young women of good quality and from good families need apply - which means Una is screwed. But she's spent a life on the streets. She's smart. She's resourceful. Which means she's now a nurse probationer at Bellevue Hospital. But it's much more than Una bargained for. The doctors are largely insufferable, there's a prickly instructor who takes an immediate dislike to her, her goody-goody roommate is a chatterbox and good Lord it's hard work! Plus there's the small matter she's wanted by the cops. It's a tightrope our girl is walking, and it gets all the more precarious when the murderer seems to have found her Bellevue...

What stuck with me most about this book was the world-building, which is dynamite. You're reading late 19th century New York City with all the glamor stripped away. If you like your historical fiction to be all pretty gowns and glittering balls, yeah this is not the book you're looking for. It's tenements, toil, the constant struggle and uncertainty of living a life of poverty. Bridgerton this ain't and I loved every gritty moment of it.

Una is plucky and resourceful even if she does some bone-headed things over the course of the story that you just KNOW are going to come back to bite her in the butt (and shocker, they do). Her character arc is fantastic though. She goes from looking out for nobody but herself to slowly opening herself up to relationships (a love interest and a friendship with her roommate). The layers begin to peel back and the reader see the vulnerabilities lying underneath.

The mystery itself is OK. Honestly by the 70% mark it hit me like a lightning bolt whodunit, and then I felt like a moron for not seeing it sooner. I mean, it's obvious. The whole thing also hinges on a major coincidence. In the city the size of New York and the murderer just happens to find Una at Bellevue? OK, sure. I'll roll with it.

But even though the mystery wasn't much a brain-bender, I still really enjoyed this story. The world-building, the female friendship between Una and her roommate, and the romance between Una and a doctor/intern. It kept me flipping the pages and I was curious to see how the author was going to untangle Una from a murder rap (it doesn't disappoint - the ending is a bit of a frenzy!). It's not driving the central plot, but there's a pretty nice romantic thread that should keep romance readers invested. If you like your historicals on the grittier side and are looking for something outside of Dukey McDukeville - here you go.

Final Grade = B

Really good book. It took me a little to get into. I like the history behind it and the mystery that was going on. I get frustrated with the "old" ways of doing thing and how women were treated but i guess that how things were done back then. Looking forward to read more from this author :)

Thanks NetGalley for this ARC.

I really enjoyed this book! I felt immersed in the author’s world and I loved the story and characters!

This book was pulled me in right away. It was a compelling read, but not so deep that it took long to read. I loved how it was to the point, and I was able to enjoy it within just a few days. It was full of hope.

Thank you, Highbridge and Netgalley, for allowing me to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

The Nurse's Secret promised to be and mostly was a perfect book of its kind. The sort that, if it were a series, I'd busily look for the next installment. Una, a woman in her early twenties, is a pickpocket in Manhattan in 1883 New York. Her "Fagin" is Marm Blei, a woman who took Una into her fold when she found her doing a poor job of stealing an apple. Una's father is a drunk and later an opium addict. Her mother died in a fire when she was nine. Until then, Una lived a solidly middle class life, but without her mother, they lost everything and she eventually landed on the streets at 9. We first meet Una as an adult, when she is sizing up marks at the arrival piers. Skenandore does a wonderful job giving us the feel of that scene, of the city in 1883, of the way Una lives at this time and the cunning she has developed to avoid being caught. She has a subsistence life in a tiny bleak apartment with three roommates, fellow thieves but not really friends.

Because she gets mixed up in a situation that results in her being suspected of murder, Una has to find a way to hide. She discovers Bellevue hospital has started a nurse training program, so with forged papers and her con artist tongue she is accepted and.. it turns out she's good at this stuff. The training for nurses and the controversies in medicine of the era (e.g. the need to clean up before performing surgery) are woven through this part of the novel, with Una, just, maintaining her cover. Despite her plan to just hide in plain site till the fuss about the murder blows over and to get nursing jobs in wealthy homes where she can steal more valuable stuff, things start to change for Una. Not in a dramatic way and always consistent with who she is. She tentatively moves toward developing what may be her first real friendships with a few people and things go well until she goes through a devastating situation with a patient who she recognizes from her past. This leads to a series of decisions that relate the the murder she was accused of, as she continues to hide her past and try to keep up her training.

All in all, the story of an imposter who can almost fake being proper but who is decidedly a misfit makes for a great story. The historical setting and information on early professional nursing is fabulous and beautifully told. Una's pluck and shifts in her world view as she sees other opportunities is believable and, since she is always likable, we root for her. My only gripe is that the ending, which I must not spoil, came together in a way that felt jarring and less consistent with the novel. Thinking it over, it may have been necessary to reach the conclusion it reached but too much happened too fast in ways that seemed inconsistent with how things were developing and then, as any historical fiction/cozy/about a 19th century pick pocket must, everything resolved. I'm not even taking a star away for that because this was truly an enjoyable book. I just want to sort out and rewrite the end to make it flow for me. And yet I get why it had to go the way it did.

4.5 ⭐️ Amanda Skenandore is proving to be an author to count on for solid, enjoyable historical fiction on lesser-known topics. I loved following the story of Una, a young street thief who finds herself participating in the first US nursing school. Una isn’t there because of a desire to become a nurse, but rather in order to hide from a murder charge. I can’t wait to read more of this author’s backlist!

Thanks go to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Review published on Goodreads, 31 July 2022:

I find the history of medicine and the development of modern medical practices fascinating subjects, so I was especially drawn in by the setting of THE NURSE'S SECRET. It was interesting to read about what 19th Century nursing was like, especially as written by an author who is also a nurse. Una's experiences at Bellevue felt authentic. Although I found this aspect of the novel compelling, the story did sag in the middle, getting a bit dull. It picked back up at about 60% when Una and Dru started really trying to solve the murders. Although the killer's identity is pretty obvious, the story's finale did have some tension and suspense to it that kept me turning pages. In addition, the book featured likable characters and strong prose, two elements I always appreciate. All of these things considered, THE NURSE'S SECRET was a liked-it-didn't-love-it read for me. If I could, I would give it 3 1/2 stars; since I can't, I'm rounding up.

Loved it! Brilliantly written, as a nurse myself I really loved how the author used her own expertise to make this not just an entertaining read but also it gave justice to the medical element of it. It is rare I am so enthralled by historical fiction but the darkness and the mystery of it made this a five star read.

The Nurse’s Secret by Amanda Skenandore was an engrossing and captivating historical fiction novel that centered around America’s first training school for nurses. The Nurse’s Secret took place in New York City during the 1880’s. The characters and setting were vividly drawn and imagined. It was fast paced and held my attention throughout. This is the first book I've read by this author and look forward to more.

This gritty story immerses you in a world where the nursing profession was very different than the profession today. The heroine's own vices make it difficult to fully be on her side, but one can't help but admire her scrappy resourcefulness. A page-turning read with a decidedly feminist view of history.

I expected an entirely different story from the one I actually read, and much better than what I’d imagined. 

Una Kelly is a compelling character, a strong yet poor woman in New York City during the Gilded Age. She works hard, she’s good at what she does, and she’s a thief.

Barney, a local newspaperman, knows who knows what and comes to Una for information. She can make him blush and stammer, but they share information about a strangler on the loose in the neighborhoods.

Here’s what I love about Amanda Skenandore writing—the absolutely seamless merging of history and story, matching the characters to their time eloquently. From the squalor of the urban tenements to the scrubbed clean wards of the hospital. Conversations are natural and steeped in accents and knowledge but not so esoteric as to lose the reader. I guess that’s what I like, the ease and naturalness of the writing.

Rags to—if not riches, to a better, more useful life, where Una’s old skills are hammered into new ones. A murder mystery with excellent sleuthing, and a light romance woven throughout. Double highly recommended.

Thank you Netgalley High Bridge Audio and Kensington Books for the gifted book!

Una Kelly has had to make her own way in life, and has ended up as a con-woman on the streets of 1880s New York. But when a supposed friend of hers pins a murder on her that she didn't commit, Una is forced to find a new trajectory for her life. Hiding in plain sight, she lies her way into the nursing school at Bellevue Hospital. She doesn't fit in with the other students who all come from "good breeding" and are dedicated to learning and becoming the best nurses they can be. But she soon finds that her rough past has prepared her for the trials found on the ward... or at least most of the trials.

I love how Skenandore's writing always completely immerses me in the setting of the book. Whether it's with an undertaker's assistant in New Orleans, a film star's wife in a leper's home, or here with a conwoman in a New York nursing school you feel like you are there amongst the sights and smells of those places.

I loved in this book how the character stayed true to herself while also growing as a person. She regularly falls back on her habits or lying, cheating, and stealing, but as time goes on she grows in her convictions of right and wrong and learns more about the goodness of people and who she can trust after years of only being able to trust in herself. Overall a well written historical fiction with interesting medical elements, along with some romance and mystery for good measure.

I received this book for free from Netgalley. That did not influence this review.

The Nurse’s Secret by Amanda Skenandore is a historical mystery embedded in a rags-to-riches (or if not riches, at least reasonable success) tale set in New York City in 1883.

Born to a poor but respectable Irish family in Five Points, Una lost her mother to a tenement fire (her mother was trying to help others) and her father to drink when she was just a child. She survives by becoming a petty thief and pickpocket. She’s understandably embittered and lives by an every-woman-for-herself creed. She believes everyone else does too.

Una loses even the very weak support system that she has when, while attempting to fence stolen cufflinks, she is caught in the act. Worse, the man to whom she was going to sell the jewelry was murdered in an alley. Una is arrested and charged with theft and murder. She escapes; she has some practice escaping from lawmen. Needing to lie low afterward, she applies for a position at the new nurse training school at Bellevue Hospital.

Nursing had not been a respectable profession before Florence Nightingale made it so. Bellevue Hospital started a program to train young women in the Nightingale tradition. Una lies her way in. However, she quickly discovers her usual blend of defiance and guile will not serve her well. Fearful of being kicked out of the program, she buckles down. Gradually she discovers an aptitude for nursing. She also makes a true friend, her very innocent roommate, who has a passion for the job. Also, she is befriended by a young surgeon, a man trying to live up to the name of his famous surgeon grandfather while also adopting newer surgical practices that his superiors scorn. This friendship soon veers into love.

Una’s transformation proceeds apace, from an angry, cynical young woman who can’t be trusted (and who is not a likeable protagonist) into a competent nurse and reliable friend. However, at the same time, the person who did commit the murder that Una was blamed for strikes again. And again. Una figures out who it is. To expose the killer, she has to risk re-engaging with the criminal underworld, which could lead to her own capture by the police. Or, it could lead to her being the killer’s next victim.

The historical details are well presented and Una ultimately matures into an admirable character. The novel is well worth the read for its glimpse into the seedy criminal world of the times.

Historical mystery set in New York circa 1880s.

Una is a gifted thief but falls afoul of the law and is arrested for murder when she cons her way into Bellevue Hospital as a probationary nurse trainee. She knows that she didn't kill anyone, but she can't forget that someone is continuing to strangle others who come from the streets. Can her extravagant ruse and many lies protect her as she investigates those deaths and somehow redeem herself as well.

As a registered nurse, I always search for books that have anything to do with medicine or science. I also love reading about the origin of the profession so that I can marvel at how far things have come since its beginning. The details about how Una performed her duties and took care of her patients was the most interesting part of this book. I was dismayed that it took 14 chapters (almost 27% into the book) before she got there. I almost quit reading but stuck it out just so I could be reminded of how nurses have evolved through the century plus. So much of the narrative proved uninteresting and unrelated to what I had thought by the synopsis was going to be the gist of the novel. I really never warmed to Una and some of the things that happened made me scoff in disbelief at what she managed to get away with. She cheats, she doesn't do her job well, and she doesn't bother to do much nursing aside from being where she shouldn't. Of course there was a silly romance with a doctor.

The amateur detecting Una does was also laughable. She sure is never where she is meant to be and her focus on finding out who is the murderer made her put herself and those who cared about her at risk. I finished it just because I always do in order to give an honest rating, but I feel generous in rounding up to 3 stars. I was very disappointed that there was not more about the nursing and honestly, the conclusion was a bit unbelievable.

I had read and liked the Mirielle West book and that is why I requested this one. Would I try this author again -- maybe. Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Publishing for the e-book ARC to read and review.

I liked this historical fiction...which takes place in the 1880's NYC & tells a story, & a mystery, around the newly founded Bellevue Hospital's nursing school. This book/writing sort of reminds me of the historical fiction of Victoria Thompson & Rhys Bowen......so that is a 'feather in Skenandore's cap'! Amanda Skenandore is actually a RN herself, & has done her research on this subject/history....& tells of some of the actual reality of the founding of the school in the 'Author's Note' at the end. This reader/reviewer is also a RN, & I appreciated the descriptions of the scenes in the hospital wards. This is probably considered a 'cozy' mystery, there is no bad language or sex, only certain descriptions of some wounds might be considered graphic. I might not be surprised to hear that the author begins a series with this book!?
I received an e-ARC of this book from the publisher Kensington Books via NetGalley, after offering to read it & share my own fair & honest review. All opinions are my own.

The Nurse’s Secret by Amanda Skenandore

Medical practice and nursing have come a LONG way since the late 1800’s. I remember reading about Florence Nightingale and then later nurses through time, medical history in books my father owned, researching the same for history projects and then graduating from nursing in 1975. Nursing has changed even more since then and I don’t think I would be up to being a nurse on the floors without a great deal of study and practice.

I was eager to read this book because of my interest in the subject, nursing and historical romances read through the decades, and because I enjoyed a previous book by this author. I am not sure if it was the story or the fact that I kept trying to read it while on vacation but did keep putting it down and thinking about not continuing. There was a LOT going on in the story beyond the nursing aspect of the story and how Una came to be in the nursing story – a serial killer on the loose, thieving, poverty, the circus, disease, bigotry, and yet I really did not connect as I would have liked to with Una or understand why she and the man she is most likely to end up with were actually attracted to one another. Perhaps if we had spent more time with Una and Edwin, I would have connected with them more.

What I liked:
* The fast-paced beginning and learning a bit about Una
* The introduction of the murders that would take place
* The idea of the nursing school
* The pluck and perseverance of Una – though I did not admire her behavior at times
* Drusilla Lewis – Dru – an intelligent, diligent, committed nursing student with a big heart wanting to be Una’s friend
* Edwin: A medical student with a backstory of his own, wants to be a better physician than his ancestors and the physician he is learning from
* The introduction of the ideas Lister brought to healing and hygiene in the medical field (although mostly hinted at)
* The real feel of much that transpired
* That the serial killer was found – though I found the way it transpired a bit unbelievable
* The wisdom of some of the women in charge of the nursing program

What I didn’t like:
* The Fagin-like woman that took Una under her wing when Una was left at lose ends when young
* The big divide between classes, bigotry, and treatment of the poor and destitute
* Knowing that much of the story was based in reality and thinking about what time in those days must have been like

Did I enjoy this book? Yes, though it was a bit slow and harder for me to get into
Would I read another book by this author? Probably

Thank you to NetGalley and the author for the ARC – This is my honest review

3-4 Stars

The mysterious deaths

A story of the first Bellevue Nursing School where women were taught to be nurse's under the Florence Nightingale philosophy. It is a story that show the uglier side of the medical field and a poor and unseemly side of New York in the 1800 time period in our history.

A young thief and pickpocket named Una gets into trouble and needs a place to hide for a while. With the help of a reporter friend she gains entry into the Bellevue Nursing School. At first it is just a way to hide from the authorities after she is accused of murder. When she is into the training she decides she does want to stay and gets into nursing although adherence to authority is a major problem for her. With the help of her friend Dru she passes the probationary period and is admitted to the school.

When a patient dies mysteriously Una is convinced it was murder and her and Dru set off to find out who the murderer is. This proves to be a dangerous move on their part.

The book is historical fiction with a murder mystery. It has some great historical content and the murder mystery is a bonus to the already great story.

The story is engaging, it keeps you reading and turning the pages. The characters are perfect for the book, Una, Dru, Edwin and the others. I enjoyed reading this book and I would recommend it.

Thanks to Amanda Skenandore for writing a great story, to Kensington books for publishing it and to NetGalley for making it available for me to read and review.