Tag: nurses

I’m delighted to be welcoming back a fabulous author, and dear friend, to my website.

Rachel Brimble’s latest #saga, Shared Secrets from the Home Front Nurses (from her #bestselling, World War II series), is published by Boldwood and is available from all good retailers.

It’s a pleasure to be able to share its #openinglines with you today.

BLURB:

1943: Becoming a Home Front nurse, meant Kathy Scott was finally able to escape the violence of her childhood. At long last, her life has taken a turn for the better. Particularly because, for the very first time, she’s made some wonderful friends–fellow nurses Sylvia, Freda and Veronica.

Kathy’s known for not being short of a word or two. So nobody’s more surprised than her when she finds herself tongue-tied around Freda’s handsome brother, James – who’s home from war with an unexplained injury.

Eventually they start to open up to each other… But can two people who have felt so broken by their experiences ever find a chance for happiness?

Don’t miss this powerful and unputdownable wartime saga about courage, healing and the power of friendship!

FIRST 500 WORDS:

Standing in line in the Upper Borough Hospital canteen, Nurse Kathy Scott resisted the urge to shiver, as the ghosts of her dead parents knocked their violent knuckles along her spine.

‘Just leave me be,’ she murmured, as she glared at the back of the nurse’s head in front of her.

The nurse turned and frowned. ‘Did you say something?’

Kathy sniffed. ‘Not to you.’

Their glares locked before the other nurse faced forwards again. Kathy defiantly lifted her chin as she fought against her guilt for being so rude. The simple fact was, the woman didn’t deserve her derision. Kathy scowled. Damn her parents for everything they had done to her when they were alive and how they continued to haunt her even after their deaths.

Tightening her fingers around her empty tray, Kathy cursed the unfairness of how easily her memories and treacherous feelings for her parents returned, over and over again, despite the beatings, the humiliation… the absence of basic humanity, that they had inflicted on her. How could it be that she still cared for them? She impatiently tapped her foot on the tiled floor as she waited in line, pitiful tears blurring her view as she stared at the taped bank of windows on the opposite side of the noisy room. Uniformed nurses chatted and laughed as they stood around in groups or sat at the long tables eating what meagre hot lunches the hospital had managed to cobble together for their hardworking staff on this damp and grey Wednesday afternoon.

An image of her parents’ body bags being wheeled past her on stretchers by the rescue workers who had found them amid the rubble of her destroyed home rose in Kathy’s mind and she swallowed the lump that dared to rise in her throat. Almost a year had passed since Bath had suffered the three days of German bombing that had killed her parents and reduced the house they’d all lived in together on Kingsmead Street to little more than bricks and ash, her mum and dad thankfully buried beneath the lot. Kathy clenched her jaw, refusing to acknowledge the single tear that slipped over her cheek. Good riddance to bad rubbish…

God, how she hated these moments of care for them that continued to catch her unawares. How could she still think of them? They beat her, berated her, treated her like dirt and the ultimate inconvenience, yet despite the testy, often unjustified and downright horrible attitude she enforced to protect herself from the rest of the world half the time, her parents still spitefully lingered in part of her heart.

‘What can I get you, love?’

Kathy started.

The grey-haired kitchen lady smiled kindly from behind the serving counter, ladle in hand. ‘We’ve got vegetable soup with a nice chunk of bread. Or maybe you fancy a bit of shepherd’s pie?’

Kathy leaned forward to inspect the contents inside the silver chafing dishes in front of her. She screwed up her nose, her…

You can buy this, the latest in the Home Front Nurses series from all good retailers, including: https://mybook.to/SharedSecrets

BIO

Rachel Brimble is the author of 35 novels and has been published by Harlequin Mills & Boon, Kensington Books, Harper Road Press and more. She now writes for Boldwood Books. Her latest Amazon bestselling WWII series, The Home Front Nurses is her most popular series to date with book four released in February 2026.

Her next series will be set in Castle Combe, The War Orphans will start in September 2026.

Rachel is also the owner of The Writer Printable Co, an Etsy shop offering printable and editable novel writing resources to help new authors on their journey to writing success.

Link: https://thewriterprintableco.etsy.com

To sign up for her publisher’s newsletter, click here: https://bit.ly/RachelBrimbleNews

Website: https://bit.ly/3wH7HQs

Twitter: https://bit.ly/3AQvK0A

Facebook: https://bit.ly/3i49GZ3

Instagram: https://bit.ly/3lTQZbF

BookBub: https://shorturl.at/nrxFJ

Many thanks for sharing your opening lines with us, Rachel.

Happy reading everyone,

Jenny x

Opening Lines: Winter Wishes for the Home Front Nurses by Rachel Brimble

By Jenny Kane

On August 7, 2025

In Fiction, Historical fiction, Opening Lines Blog, Romance, saga

I’m delighted to be able to share the #openinglines from the latest in the Home Front Nurses series with you today.

Written by good friend, and fabulous writer, Rachel Brimble; Winter Wishes for the Home Front Nurses follows the personal and professional lives of nurses, Freda, Sylvia and Veronica as they help Bath recover from Germany’s attack on the city in the previous April.

Blurb

An uplifting story of courage, friendship and love against the odds, perfect for fans of Lizzie Lane, Rosie Clarke, and Call the Midwife.

Winter, 1942.Secrets abound for the Home Front Nurses, but will one of them be able to tell the truth about her past before Christmas?

As the weather turns cold, and the war rages on, Veronica Campbell finds herself loving her job as a home front nurse more than ever. She’s spending time with her beloved best friends Sylvia and Freda, as well as assisting on life-saving operations with her fellow nurse Betty Wilson, and feeling valued and happy.

But at home, she wishes things were different. Because even cosied up by the fireside of her lovely little house, there’s a man who lives on her street. Someone she’d once thought she could trust, who – five years ago – had violently attacked her. His threats to her remain, but she’s been terrified into silence.

But everything changes when Betty needs somewhere to stay for Christmas, and Veronica impulsively suggests she move in with her. But can she trust Betty enough to let her guard down and tell her what happened that fateful day? Because if she doesn’t… will Betty be put at risk too?

Here are the first 500 words…

Chapter One: Veronica

Bath, August 1942

‘V! Wait for us! Have you heard the news?’

Startled from her worries, Veronica Campbell halted near the hospital entrance and spun around as her best friends and fellow nursing colleagues, Sylvia Roberts and Freda Parkes, hurried towards her, their faces stricken.

Tension immediately stiffened Veronica’s shoulders. What now? It sometimes felt, for the last three years of war, Europe had been battered with an endless stream of shock, horror and loss, even if Britain remained stalwart in its patriotic humour and tenacity.

Sylvia’s brown eyes were wide, and her bright auburn hair glowed beneath the rays of the lowering August sunshine as she came to a stop in front of Veronica. ‘The Duke of Kent is dead!’ she exclaimed. ‘Killed in a plane crash in Scotland.’

‘What?’ Veronica looked between her friends. ‘The King’s brother is dead? Was the duke in Scotland? I thought—’

‘No.’ Freda’s eyes were shadowed with sadness. ‘It would probably be easier to comprehend if he’d been killed in an air attack, but he was being flown to Iceland to visit the RAF stations. Offer moral support, I assume.’

Veronica frowned, her previous distraction of where she had to go and who she had to see in the next hour momentarily quieted. ‘That’s just awful.’

‘Well, it must be true,’ Sylvia said. ‘The press do not write about the Royal Family lightly.’

‘Apparently,’ Freda interrupted a second time, ‘the duke and the entire crew onboard were killed when the plane crashed into a hillside, which was off course from where they should have been headed. Goodness knows why. Anything could have happened, I suppose. Probably just a terrible accident.’

Sylvia blew out a heavy breath. ‘I’ll always remember when Queen Elizabeth said she felt she could look the East End in the face, after Buckingham Palace was bombed. God knows what she’ll say to the nation after losing her brother-in-law in such a horrible way.’

Veronica closed her eyes.

Here she was fretting about visiting Officer Matthews – one of the kindest men a girl could know – when the war continued to take more and more lives, day after day. What did it matter that she was visiting a man she suspected loved her… even if she didn’t love him, when people were dying every day? Whether royalty or pauper, Hitler gave no preferential treatment and the deaths of the duke and his entire crew would undoubtedly cheer the German leader up no end.

She opened her eyes and looked past her friends towards the hospital doors.

Eric Matthews had always been kind and considerate towards her, despite all he had been through and all he had done. And not just during the time he was serving, but from the day he had walked so unexpectedly – so anonymously – into her life.

Tears pricked her eyes and Veronica quickly blinked them away before Sylvia or Freda noticed. Yet the self-loathing evoked by the vile truth of what Eric knew about her would not deter…

***

You can buy the latest Home Front Nurses novel from all good retailers, including: https://mybook.to/winterwishes

Bio:

Rachel lives with her husband in a small town near Bath, England and they have two adult daughters.

She is the author of 35 novels and has been published by Harlequin Mills & Boon, Kensington Books, Harper Road Press and more. She now writes for Boldwood Books and books 1 and 2 of her latest series, The Home Front Nurses, have been Amazon bestsellers with book 3, Winter Wishes for the Home Front Nurses released in August 2025.

Rachel is also the owner of The Writer Printable Co, an Etsy shop offering printables to help new authors on their journeys to writing success.