Band of Sisters

Author: Lauren Willig
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062986171
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 544

Book Description
"A crackling portrayal of everyday American heroines…A triumph." — Fiona Davis, New York Times bestselling author of The Lions of Fifth Avenue A group of young women from Smith College risk their lives in France at the height of World War I in this sweeping novel based on a true story—a skillful blend of Call the Midwife and The Alice Network—from New York Times bestselling author Lauren Willig. A scholarship girl from Brooklyn, Kate Moran thought she found a place among Smith’s Mayflower descendants, only to have her illusions dashed the summer after graduation. When charismatic alumna Betsy Rutherford delivers a rousing speech at the Smith College Club in April of 1917, looking for volunteers to help French civilians decimated by the German war machine, Kate is too busy earning her living to even think of taking up the call. But when her former best friend Emmeline Van Alden reaches out and begs her to take the place of a girl who had to drop out, Kate reluctantly agrees to join the new Smith College Relief Unit. Four months later, Kate and seventeen other Smithies, including two trailblazing female doctors, set sail for France. The volunteers are armed with money, supplies, and good intentions—all of which immediately go astray. The chateau that was to be their headquarters is a half-burnt ruin. The villagers they meet are in desperate straits: women and children huddling in damp cellars, their crops destroyed and their wells poisoned. Despite constant shelling from the Germans, French bureaucracy, and the threat of being ousted by the British army, the Smith volunteers bring welcome aid—and hope—to the region. But can they survive their own differences? As they cope with the hardships and terrors of the war, Kate and her colleagues find themselves navigating old rivalries and new betrayals which threaten the very existence of the Unit. With the Germans threatening to break through the lines, can the Smith Unit pull together and be truly a band of sisters?

All My Sisters

Author: Judith Lennox
Publisher: Review
ISBN: 1472224132
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 472

Book Description
Under the storm clouds of war, can they hope for happiness? In the tumultuous years before the First World War, four sisters seek to follow their dreams in Judith Lennox's compelling novel All My Sisters. Perfect for fans of Lulu Taylor and Kate Morton. Iris, Marianne, Eva and Clemency are the daughters of Sheffield manufacturer, Joshua Maclise. In the tumultuous years before the First World War, the sisters seek to fulfil their ambitions. Pretty, self-centred Iris dreams of a grand marriage, quiet Marianne meets the love of her life, and passionate Eva longs for independence. Only Clemency, caring for her invalid mother, remains tied to the family home. Years pass and, her hopes of marriage dashed, Iris becomes a nurse in a London hospital. Marianne, living on a tea estate in Ceylon, finds first her happiness and then her life is threatened by a cruel and ruthless man. When Eva falls in love with the Bohemian, Gabriel Bellamy, her dreams of a career as an artist falter. As the clouds darken and war changes the lives of all the sisters, Clemency fights to free herself from the bonds that confine her and to discover love at last. What readers are saying about All My Sisters: 'This is a book to savour - so many characters, all of them well drawn and who invite our sympathy. A wonderful story' '[Judith Lennox] is the ultimate storyteller... her stories are compelling and beautifully descriptive of both characters and feelings' 'Happy and sad, [this book] has all the qualities to make for an excellent read'

Sisters of the Somme

Author: Penny Starns
Publisher: The History Press
ISBN: 0750968850
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 187

Book Description
Following the outbreak of WWI, the Order of St. John appealed for volunteers to train as frontline medical staff at a major volunteer field hospital in Etaples, France. One such volunteer was Lily Fielding. Despite her training she was ill-prepared for the stench of gangrene and other gruesome realities of war. This book is a heart-warming account of camaraderie and compassion based on the true stories of the VAD nurses who were at the Somme. “I am liking it here very much and could never have thought I would for a moment. Of course there will always be days when the horror of nursing unnerves one.” - Lily Fielding’s diary, July 1916. Penny Starns is a writer and historian with a PhD in the history of medicine from the University of Bristol. She has written many books about female heroines in the twentieth century, including 'Odette: World War Two’s Darling Spy' (The History Press, 2009), 'Surviving Tenko: The True Story of Margot Turner' (The History Press, 2010) and 'Blitz Families: The Children who Stayed Behind' (The History Press, 2012).

Sisters In Arms

Author: Nicola Tyrer
Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
ISBN: 0297855697
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 292

Book Description
The remarkable true story of the Queen Alexandra frontline nurses in the Second World War. The amazing experiences of the Queen Alexandra nurses in the Second World War form one of the greatest adventure stories of modern times, and - incredibly - remain largely untold. Thousands of middle-class girls, barely out of school, were plucked from sheltered backgrounds, subjected to training regimes unimaginably tough by today's standards, and sent forth to share the harsh conditions of the fighting services. They had to deal with the most appalling suffering, yet most found reserves of inner strength that carried them through episodes of unrelieved horror. Over 200 nurses died, torpedoed in hospital ships, bombed in field hospitals or murdered in Japanese prison camps. Dozens won medals for gallantry. From the beaches of Dunkirk, to Singapore and D-Day, they saw it all. Whether tending burned pilots from the Battle of Britain or improvising medical treatment in Japanese death camps, their dedication was second to none. This is their story.

Those Wild Wyndhams

Author: Claudia Renton
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 1101874309
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 542

Book Description
The three dazzlingly beautiful, wildly rich Wyndham sisters, part of the four hundred families that made up Britain's ruling class, at the center of cultural and political life in late-Victorian/Edwardian Britain. Here are their complex, idiosyncratic lives; their opulent, privileged world; their romantic, roiling age. They were confidantes to British prime ministers, poets, writers, and artists, their lives entwined with the most celebrated and scandalous figures of the day, from Oscar Wilde to Henry James. They were the lovers of great men--or men of great prominence...Mary Wyndham, wilder than her wild brothers; lover of Wilfrid Blunt, confidante of Prime Minister Arthur Balfour (the Balfour Declaration); married to Hugo, Lord Elcho; later the Countess of Wemyss...Madeline Adeane, the quietest and happiest of the three...and Pamela, spoiled, beautiful, of the three, possesser of the true talent, wife of the Foreign Secretary Edward Grey (later Viscount Grey), who took Britain into the First World War. They lived in a world of luxurious excess, a world of splendor at 44 Belgrave Square, and later at the even more vast Clouds, the exquisite Wiltshire house on 4,000 acres, the "house of the age," designed, in 1876, by the visionary architect, Philip Webb; the model for Henry James's The Spoils of Poynton. They were bred with the pride of the Plantagenets and raised with a fierce belief that their family was exceptional. They avoided the norm at all costs and led the way to a blending of aristocracy and art. Their group came to be called The Souls, whose members from 1885 to the 1920s included the most distinguished politicians, artists, and thinkers of their time. In Those Wild Wyndhams, Claudia Renton gives us a dazzling portrait of one of England's grandest, noblest families. Renton captures, with nuance and depth, their complex wrangling between head and heart, and the tragedy at the center of all their lives as the privilege and bliss of the Victorian age gave way to the Edwardian era, the Great War, and the passing of an opulent world.

Eve and her Sisters

Author: Rita Bradshaw
Publisher: Headline
ISBN: 0755375947
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 238

Book Description
She gave them everything and asked for nothing in return... Rita Bradshaw's heart-stopping saga, Eve and Her Sisters, is a captivating tale of poverty, family and unrequited love. Perfect for fans of Dilly Court and Kitty Neale. Following their father's death in a mining accident, sisters Eve, Mary and Nell journey to the Michaelmas fair at Gateshead to be put up for hire - it is that or face the workhouse. Eve, who has looked after her younger sisters since their mother's death, cannot bear the thought of them being separated so she is indebted to innkeeper, Caleb Travis, when he takes pity on her and agrees to hire them all. Over the years, Eve's gratitude towards him turns to love, but Caleb is blind to Eve's feelings as he is infatuated with Mary. It is to take many more years of heartache before he realises his mistake... What Amazon readers are saying about Eve and Her Sisters: 'Rita Bradshaw at her best. Fantastic story line and you get drawn into the book, I could not put it down. Very down to earth and one can empathise with situations the characters find themselves in. More, more, more from Rita' 'I couldn't put it down, it was moving, touching and almost as though it was real. Very believable, fully recommend' 'The author really brings the characters to life and you almost feel as though you are there. Brilliant!'

The Facemaker

Author: Lindsey Fitzharris
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374719667
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 235

Book Description
A New York Times Bestseller Finalist for the 2022 Kirkus Prize | Named a best book of the year by The Guardian "Enthralling. Harrowing. Heartbreaking. And utterly redemptive. Lindsey Fitzharris hit this one out of the park." —Erik Larson, author of The Splendid and the Vile Lindsey Fitzharris, the award-winning author of The Butchering Art, presents the compelling, true story of a visionary surgeon who rebuilt the faces of the First World War’s injured heroes, and in the process ushered in the modern era of plastic surgery. From the moment the first machine gun rang out over the Western Front, one thing was clear: humankind’s military technology had wildly surpassed its medical capabilities. Bodies were battered, gouged, hacked, and gassed. The First World War claimed millions of lives and left millions more wounded and disfigured. In the midst of this brutality, however, there were also those who strove to alleviate suffering. The Facemaker tells the extraordinary story of such an individual: the pioneering plastic surgeon Harold Gillies, who dedicated himself to reconstructing the burned and broken faces of the injured soldiers under his care. Gillies, a Cambridge-educated New Zealander, became interested in the nascent field of plastic surgery after encountering the human wreckage on the front. Returning to Britain, he established one of the world’s first hospitals dedicated entirely to facial reconstruction. There, Gillies assembled a unique group of practitioners whose task was to rebuild what had been torn apart, to re-create what had been destroyed. At a time when losing a limb made a soldier a hero, but losing a face made him a monster to a society largely intolerant of disfigurement, Gillies restored not just the faces of the wounded but also their spirits. The Facemaker places Gillies’s ingenious surgical innovations alongside the dramatic stories of soldiers whose lives were wrecked and repaired. The result is a vivid account of how medicine can be an art, and of what courage and imagination can accomplish in the presence of relentless horror.

The Spitfire Sisters

Author: Margaret Dickinson
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
ISBN: 152901848X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 417

Book Description
Family and friendship mean everything under the darkening skies of wartime Britain. The Spitfire Sisters is the third book in Margaret Dickinson's moving Maitland trilogy. It is the 1930s and the Maitland family have spent the years following the Great War struggling to come to terms with its catastrophic aftermath, and their hopes now lie with the next generation. Their Lincolnshire village of Doddington suffered terrible loss and it has taken great courage for the bereaved families to rebuild their lives without their loved ones. When war is declared again, it is Daisy Maitland and her peers who must now take up the fight for freedom. Feisty and a daredevil like her beloved Aunt Pips, who spent World War One on the front line serving with a flying ambulance corps, Daisy had persuaded a family friend to teach her to fly as a young woman. Now her country is at war, she is determined to put her skills to good use, enlisting in the Air Transport Auxiliary. There she forges new friendships – but she never forgets her childhood friend and cousin, Luke, who has joined the RAF as a fighter pilot. As war rages in the skies and on the ground, Daisy, her friends and her family – at home and across the Channel – will find their bravery and strength tested to the very limits in their determination to save their country. And they have learned one of the most valuable lessons of all: true love will find a way.

The Olivier Sisters

Author: Sarah Watling
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0190867396
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 417

Book Description
Centering the Olivier sisters in their own time, Watling presents a vivid and fascinating group portrait of sisters, sisterhood, and feminism in the early twentieth century

Sister Soldiers of the Great War

Author: Cynthia Toman
Publisher: UBC Press
ISBN: 0774832169
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 311

Book Description
“I am on night duty ... on what is supposed to be the ‘hopeless ward’ so you can imagine, or try to, just what I am doing. I know you cannot really have the faintest idea ...” In Sister Soldiers of the Great War, award-winning author Cynthia Toman recovers the long-lost history of Canada’s first women soldiers – nursing sisters who enlisted as officers with the Canadian Army Medical Corps. These experienced professional nurses left their friends, families, and jobs to enlist in the army. Granted relative rank and equal pay to men, they had a mandate to salvage as many sick and wounded men as possible for return to the front lines. Nothing prepared them for poor living conditions, the scale of casualties, or the type of wounds they encountered, but their letters and diaries reveal that they were determined to soldier on under all circumstances while still “living as well as possible.”