A Fresh Start for the Country Nurse by Kate Eastham #Review

 

I am delighted to introduce a new series by Kate Eastham. A Fresh Start for the Country Nurse was published by Boldwood Books on 7th March.

Call the Midwife meets All Creatures Great and Small in this first of a heart-warming series about a country nurse and midwife.

July, 1936

After an unexpected heartbreak and a nasty accident on a busy Liverpool street, Lara Flynn is desperate to start afresh and leave painful memories behind her. She takes on a new job as a district nurse and midwife at a country practice, in the remote Lancashire village of Ingleside.

But instead of the friendly rural idyll she pictures, Lara finds she must cycle vast distances to visit locals who harbour an innate suspicion of a newcomer from the city – as well as dealing with unpredictable livestock, an erratic senior doctor and often challenging medical cases. She also rubs up against handsome local vet, Leo, when she helps to deliver a calf!

With time, Lara learns that healing is a two-way street: just as she helps her patients recover from illness and injury, her new life in Ingleside starts to heal her own wounds. But will this tight-knit farming community ever truly take this city girl to its heart?

An absorbing story of compassion, resilience and the power of community, perfect for fans of Donna Douglas and Jean Fullerton.

 

My Thoughts

This is a promising introduction to a new series set in 1930’s Lancashire. These are the days before war broke out and there are few clues as to what will happen by the end of the decade. In Ingleside, you feel as though you are living in a little bubble, in a tight knit community where everyone knows your business and ‘in comers’ are treated with suspicion. Lara finds herself in this position, having to work hard to prove herself as a competent district nurse. 

    In the practice at Ingleside, she struggles to settle at first, hoping to find a surrogate family. The demands of the patients give them all a common motivation. Lara emerges as a determined and courageous character who puts on a professional facade and struggles to hide her insecurities and doubts. There is plenty of variety in the daily routine. Each family she visits has their own problems. There are some dark and threatening moments but also many lighter times, full of humour and touching reactions as people warm to Lara’s empathy and kindness. 

    This first book in the series is all about settling in and establishing relationships. There are plenty of directions further stories can proceed along.  Romance is a faint glimmer in the background. Events from Lara’s life in Liverpool may appear within her new life. Most of all, you feel that there is more to learn about Lara and her colleagues and new friends.

In short: new beginnings and new friendships 

 

About the Archers

Kate Eastham trained as a nurse in the late 1970s and enjoyed a long career before a change in circumstance meant that she needed to be a full time carer for her partner. Determined to make the most of this new role ‘working from home’ she cleared a space at the kitchen table for a pile of books and a writing pad and started to make notes on the history of nursing. Inspired by the achievements of Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole during the Crimean War she was also captured by the sheer grit and determination of other 'ordinary women' whose voices from the past are seldom heard. An idea for a novel was born and her first book, ‘Miss Nightingale’s Nurses’, was published by Penguin in 2018, closely followed by three more in the series.

Having thought that she would never find anything to replace the work in nursing that she loved, she is now equally immersed in her writing, drawing on years of experience and the stories told by so many patients. With her passion for history, Kate aims to continue making visible the lives of ordinary yet extraordinary women from the past.

She is currently writing for Boldwood Books and the first in her brand new Country Nurse series will be published in March 2025.

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Book links 

Thanks to Kate Eastham, Boldwood Books and Rachel of  Rachel's Random Resources for a copy of the book and a place on the tour.

Check out the rest of the tour!