Nurse into Woman

By Marguerite Mooers Marshall

“What’s the use of being a good nurse, since I haven’t got eighteen-karat hair and big blue eyes? Nothing else seems to count, with patients or doctors either!”

Kristine Grant is devoted to her job as a nurse in New York City, and as an orphan who experienced excruciating loss, she has vowed she will never marry and will be only a nurse. But Captain Jim Dudley, whose life she saves when he is near death with pneumonia, has other ideas—and his love, unlike the passing fancy that most male patients soon forget, is real: He sends her gifts with personal significance, asks her about herself—but he never kisses her. Eventually he explains that there’s another woman, and when he leaves the hospital he promises to come back to her as soon as he has disentangled himself. Kristine is smitten with this handsome, intelligent, devoted gentleman—but is convinced she will soon fade from his mind. So she goes on with her nursing, and soon meets a young woman who claims that the father of her new baby is Jim! Broken-hearted, she agrees to marry Dr. Lee Bowen, at 45 more than twice her age, even though she does not love him. Will she recover from yet another heartbreak and find love with Dr. Bowen, or does Jim have more to tell?

“A stirring human story about a great hospital told with a warmth and understanding that should delight thousands of readers.” Toronto Star, August 1941