The Night Nurse by Cole Baxter is a work of fiction. It is a crime thriller with abuses of trust in people. Laura returns to her father's estate after an irreparable marriage that incurred her a big debt and a broken heart. Her father is suffering from dementia and throwing a lot of tantrums. This has caused dependable workers to quit working for him. Laura hires a nurse and a caretaker whose recommendations are shiny, with everyone loving the two siblings. The siblings are very impressive, from their work to their deception.


In my reading, I got to enjoy many things about the book. The plot was good with fresh things to build it up. The language was clear, which caused no difficulties in understanding. The characters that I found interesting were the Ormond siblings. I could smell a rat the moment they were introduced. You can imagine my anticipation as I watched Laura get lost in her work, nightmares, and dreadful husband.

I did not enjoy the drag in the first few chapters. The juiciest parts came after several chapters.

I rate this book 4 out of 5 stars. I could have given this book all the stars except for the fact named above. All considered, it was an entertaining book with a satisfactory ending.


I recommend this book to readers of adult fiction and crime fiction.

I had high hopes for this book, but the description basically told the entire story. I feel like we could have had some more information on Sam’s backstory or the book from the nurses POV too.

Picking up the pieces from a difficult divorce, Laura returns home to her dad to help care for him following a dementia diagnosis. Finding it hard to care for her dad, she hires a pair of caregivers to help out. At first things are great, but soon things start to go wrong and Laura can't help but think it is connected to the nurses. Are they hiding something? What follows is horrific...

Another brilliant book by Cole Baxter. I couldn't stop turning the pages until the end and couldn't wait to find out what was going on. Great!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of the book in return for my honest feedback.

Man oh man do I hate giving bad reviews but really?!?!? The dialogue, the plot holes, the lack of common sense was just disastrous. I don't really know what else to say. I feel like I'm bashing this author but I'm just giving my honest opinion. If this is your first by this author, don't let this set an example for the rest of his books because he can do better, he has done better. Two Stars.

Thank you to Netgalley and Inkubator Books for this ARC.

The shocking prologue grabbed my attention, and I thought this was on track to be another Baxter winner.

Unfortunately, the poor writing was this book’s demise. It was overly simplistic, verbose, poorly plotted, illogical and unbelievable. Don’t get me started on the characters!

My interest waned and I had to force myself to continue. I must question if the author really wrote this one! Regardless, the teacher within wants to return this to the student, offering a second chance to redeem himself. I’ve read Baxter books before and this one is not representative of other books of his I’ve enjoyed. This is my first ever 1-star review.

When I receive an ARC, I make every attempt to complete the novel; I believe this is only fair - but I just couldn't read another page (I got to about 25%) and did not finish the book - and here is why.

The Night Nurse reads a little too closely to The Housekeeper.
Sam continually calling Laura "darlin" - couldn't' he use her name at least occasionally?
Too many "yeahs" in conversations - yes, it is the way we talk in real life but reading it frequently is distracting.
Unnecessary information - "jogged to garbage can. . . tossed her trash" Why was this necessary? Does it add to the plot?
Many pages devoted to the abuse Laura and her brother suffered at the hands of their mother, while children. Why was this pertinent? (In fairness, the reason may have come to light later in the story line).
Laura's search for a caregiver for her father - Was she not put off by the appearance, how convenient, of a brother/sister team? Did she not get bells and sirens when she saw the pair drive off in a Mercedes? Did Laura not do background checks on the pair? And Laura was an annoying character.

Feedback for publisher./writer use only - nothing on Goodreads, etc.

The Night Nurse
by Cole Baxter
This was kinda slow. There were far too many to keep up with who was whom. It just was not my cup of tea. Not much mystery, but I did finish. Others may just love it. I thought it was just ok.

This review will contain spoilers so be warned!

I will start off by saying I love Cole baxter thrillers and have read through almost all of their back catalogue. They're always easy to read thrillers which pass an afternoon. However, I don't know what went wrong with this one but eveyr other page I was tempted to just not finish the book. The writing is terrible. The plot has massive holes. Nothing makes sense. The characters actions are illogical. It was just painful to read!

For example, the main character is hiring a new carer for her dad who suffers from dementia. The nurse being interviewed says how she married her last patient before he died. This didn't ring alarm bells for anyone, a nurse marrying an elderly patient who's not mentally capable of consenting because he's that ill with dementia?! Or the breach of ethics in a carer marrying a patient? Noone finds that disturbing?

Or when she realises her food has been drugged so stops eating it hut still let's her dad eat his meals? Which are also drugged? She also doesn't care enough to notice her dad's meds have changed or that he's passed out all the time? She never spoke to the Dr to keep updated prior to that?!

Or this section - "I think your father did it for Billy and those guests of his.. your mother wasn't too thrilled at seeing all the wives parade around in their biking though" Sam chuckled

I'm sure she never let him hear the end of it once they were gone

No, she didn't. I think your father started inviting them more often just to get back at her"

Who's guests? Billy's? Isn't he about 14? How do his guests have wives?

Or "She set about making herself some breakfast, just some eggs and toast. Bella arrived just as she was cracking her eggs. 'I'll be quick, I promise. Just making a couple of eggs.'
Oh, no worries, I was going to hard boil a couple for your father and make him some egg sandwiches." How many times do you need to say the word "eggs"?! That writing couldn't be any more clunky and disjointed if a child wrote it

And this was the most bizarre thing I've ever read in a book before - the character is drunk and so when she's talking she's using words such as "gotted/dinn't / bedder/ beatened/ naddda/ bedder / juss/ dinn't / hard-lee (hardly) anger (angry) and they're all written in italics within the dialogue so are they highlighted because they're spelling errors that were supposed to be corrected? Or does being drunk mean people talk like 5 year olds? Is English not her 1st language? Would "naddda" even be pronounced differently that nadda? And in the case of say "beatened"...... if you were going to turn it into a nonsense word then wouldn't you say beateneded because "beatened" seems much harder to say! Especially if I'm blackout drunk! And why are we making words even longer because we're drunk? I've seen people use the wrong tense before or slur their words but instead of saying 'he got caught'... 'he gotted caught?!' Never in my life have I heard a drunk person say things like that! Why are they all in italics? Is she emphasising them? Or just because they're all made up words? In which case, I'm sure the reader is well aware of that without having them in italics for us.... We are not the drunk ones in this scenario. Is it supposed to indicate that those words are said with an accent and I just don't understand because I'm Scottish and not American? Is it a southern thing?! Please someone help me because I did actually have to put the book down after that page and go and get a drink. The most bizarre paragraph I've ever read and it took me completely out of the story!

And then we had gems like:
"my friend has been injured by a riding lawn mower accident"...... what?! Injured by an accident?!

Or "he asked, looking hurt and sounding a little pouty"..... HOW DO YOU SOUND POUTY?!

My final straw "she was surprised to find that he had four different licences. She had her proof, not only that be was an asshole who had tried to drug and probably rape her, but that he was a criminal too!"   And.... well..... what?! If he's drugging women and raping or attempting to rape them then that in itssels makes him a criminal. Fake driving licence don't top drugging and rape! He is already a criminal because he did those things, not as well as being a rapist.

And of course the villain, without any prompting just blurts out when 1st confronted "bla bla bla he'll be my latest victim" and implies not only that she's intending to murder someone but also that she's more than happy to tell the world how she killed people before and got away with it. Because criminals love admiting to other crimes unprompted, when they've previously gotten away with them.

Also....a man is caught spiking a woman's drink and is then charged with possession of a controlled substance, attempted assault and attempted rape?! Where does the rape attempt come into it? Because he tried to drug her? Like rape cases aren't hard enough to prove, this writer thinks a woman being drugged would lead to a guy being arrested for attempted rape when half the time, a woman who is actually raped doesn't even end up having her attacker charged with rape or attemtped rape?! And it was her choice to kiss him..... she wanted to distract him to switch drinks sooo what exactly did he do that could be classed as "attempted rape"? And she ended up swapping out the drinks so he got drugged so does that make her guilty or attempted rape if that's all it takes?! Absolute insanity!!

Or when the police are questioning the victim and she asks if she can explain the events from the start and the police officer responds "if you must" and follows this up by saying the events leading up to the night had nothing to do with it...... please just put me put my misery now.

I love Cole Baxter, something went horribly wrong with this book though! Do not bother reading it but definitely check out the other books

The writing wasn't bad, but it wasn't phenomenal, either. Too many characters being introduced all at once, bland descriptions at times. The characters themselves were very stereotypical and cookie cutter, over-the-top in their respective roles.

This was great! I really enjoyed getting into this. I loved the writing, it was very immersive and I liked where this was going. Highly recommend!