I think part of my fascination with this series is seeing how much health care has changed over the years. The opening hospital scene illustrates that by showing a believed teddy bear ripped from the arms of a sick child and the ward sister ordering Dora to burn it and ignore the child's crying. Then there is the strict visiting hours. Imagine only being able to see your child once a month. I can't even imagine keeping patients in the hospital that long these days they try to get you out of there as quickly as possible.
Onto the story, the fourth instalment was written like it would be the last which thankfully it isn't. Dora and Millie are in their final year of training. Millie gets little mention this time around which is sad and I missed her and the newly graduated Helen who also made a brief appearance. The story focuses on Dora and her arch rival Lucy Lane. Lucy who came across as stuck up and kind of mean in other books finally gets some back story and it was nice to get a look into why she acts the way she does. Also included are two new characters Effie, who comes from a long line of Nightingale graduates and Jess hired as a maid in the students home. Dora and Lucy are flung together both as roommates and on the paediatric ward. While Dora is dealing with her secret romance and hoping to plan a wedding, she soon comes face to face with someone from her past she'd hoped was long gone. Lucy and her family are torn apart by the mistakes of her father and face a life of destitution. Effie forms an unlikely friendship with Jess, and develops a romance with a medical student who is a huge jerk but in the end gets what's coming to him in one of the best scenes in the entire series. Jess is on the run from her family. Known as thieves and the lowest of the low in the East End she wants to start out with a clean slate. As always I loved this book and series. If I wasn't so far behind the ending would've made me cry as I don't want to see these characters go. I especially want to see what becomes of Jess and Effie as surely. But it was nice to see the other characters stories wrapped up. Each somehow got the ending they want sort of. I think it's ridiculous that they have to give up nursing work if they marry. Why go to all that trouble only to marry in the end and throw it all away, makes no sense to me, but perhaps that was just the time. Oh well another engaging instalment to the Nightingale series, can't wait to see what happens next.