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Summer Change
'Nurse Dinah Carr had reached a turning point in her career. She was in her second year at the Good Hope Hospital -- but she was still not sure she had made the right choice.
And the decision about her future was not made any easier by the attraction she felt for handsome, fair-haired Alec Lewis, the House Physician. As for Mr. Hartshorne, the brusque, authoritative Surgical Registrar, his feelings towards Dinah seemed to change so often, she found it even more difficult to decide what to do…'
And the decision about her future was not made any easier by the attraction she felt for handsome, fair-haired Alec Lewis, the House Physician. As for Mr. Hartshorne, the brusque, authoritative Surgical Registrar, his feelings towards Dinah seemed to change so often, she found it even more difficult to decide what to do…'
155 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1960
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May 2, 2020
'The Summer Change' by Olive Norton (aka Kate Norway, Hilary Neal, Bess Norton) is, I think, one of the author's 'misses'.
The novel's title is a reference to a switch over on hospital wards occurring when a 'set' of nurses graduate and need to be rotated into more senior positions. In this case, the heroine, Nurse Dinah Carr, rotates from her role on night duty (where she's halfheartedly pursued on Ward 6 by resident Lothario physician - Alec Lewis) to Theatre where she comes up against brusque ex-school master turned surgical registrar, Henry Hartshorne (nickname 'H.H.'). From their initial encounter, H.H. and Dinah set sparks off one another, however a series of misunderstandings and hospital dramas keep them apart until the book's final pages.
Obstacles to this medical pair's HEA include a 'small' matter involving Dinah missing one of the 'surgical mops' in a post-op count. The reason H.H. goes 'off on one' at the heroine for her mistake (e.g. "What sort of Nurse do you call yourself Dinah Carr?") is because, as a consequence of her miscount, he has to re-operate on a boy who's condition has weakened post appendectomy. There's further drama when Dinah's widowed mother is badly injured by a collapsing balcony and Dinah insists the Consultant Surgeon steps aside so that H.H. can operate on her, as well as angst and mystery about H.H.'s jailbird step-brother and a ongoing squabbles stemming from H.H.'s jealousy of Alec's (frankly tepid) flirtation with the heroine.
In summary, the novel is busy, particularly as there are far too many secondary characters for a book its length, and there are long-ish periods where the heroine and hero are apart and/or swamped by the morass of tertiary characters. I'm rating the book a two-and-a-half star vintage romance read. If you lean toward the 1950's/1960's hospital romance genre and want to try a title from Olive Norton, I'd recommend instead getting your paws on The Morning Star or Factory Nurse.
The novel's title is a reference to a switch over on hospital wards occurring when a 'set' of nurses graduate and need to be rotated into more senior positions. In this case, the heroine, Nurse Dinah Carr, rotates from her role on night duty (where she's halfheartedly pursued on Ward 6 by resident Lothario physician - Alec Lewis) to Theatre where she comes up against brusque ex-school master turned surgical registrar, Henry Hartshorne (nickname 'H.H.'). From their initial encounter, H.H. and Dinah set sparks off one another, however a series of misunderstandings and hospital dramas keep them apart until the book's final pages.
Obstacles to this medical pair's HEA include a 'small' matter involving Dinah missing one of the 'surgical mops' in a post-op count. The reason H.H. goes 'off on one' at the heroine for her mistake (e.g. "What sort of Nurse do you call yourself Dinah Carr?") is because, as a consequence of her miscount, he has to re-operate on a boy who's condition has weakened post appendectomy. There's further drama when Dinah's widowed mother is badly injured by a collapsing balcony and Dinah insists the Consultant Surgeon steps aside so that H.H. can operate on her, as well as angst and mystery about H.H.'s jailbird step-brother and a ongoing squabbles stemming from H.H.'s jealousy of Alec's (frankly tepid) flirtation with the heroine.
In summary, the novel is busy, particularly as there are far too many secondary characters for a book its length, and there are long-ish periods where the heroine and hero are apart and/or swamped by the morass of tertiary characters. I'm rating the book a two-and-a-half star vintage romance read. If you lean toward the 1950's/1960's hospital romance genre and want to try a title from Olive Norton, I'd recommend instead getting your paws on The Morning Star or Factory Nurse.
Displaying 1 of 1 review