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Leonora Trilogy/Frontline Nurses #1
Frontline Nurses
Can she follow her heart while doing her duty?A heartwarming saga following nurses during the First World War. Perfect for fans of Donna Douglas's A Nightingale Christmas Promise, Lizzie Page's The War Nurses and Margaret Dickinson's The Poppy Girls.After training with the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, Leonora Malham Brown sets off to Europe with her new friend, Victoria, determined to do her bit for the war effort.The battlefield is a difficult place for a woman so Leonora cuts her hair short and swaps her skirts for trousers in order to better cope with the demanding duties of a frontline nurse. But concealing her true identity becomes more complicated when she meets the dashing Colonel Malkovic.Torn between keeping her secret and their blossoming friendship, Leonora must choose between her duty and her heart...A moving emotional wartime saga about brave nurses on the battlefield, based on an amazing true story.________________________________Make sure you've read all the books in the Frontline Nurses 1. Frontline Nurses2. Frontline Nurses On Duty3. Secrets of the Frontline NursesAnd don't miss Holly Green's new series set in a Liverpool 1. Workhouse Orphans2. Workhouse Angel3. Workhouse Nightingale4. Workhouse Girl
386 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2011
61 people are currently reading
208 people want to read
About the author
Holly Green
29 books1,404 followersPen name for author: Hilary Green
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
Holly Green writes historical sagas about love and war, and her books are inspired by the stories she heard from her parents when she was a child. Her father was a professional singer with a fine baritone voice and her mother was a dancer, but they hd to give up their professions at the outbreak of World War II.
Holly is from Liverpool and is a trained actress and teacher - her claim to fame being that she gave Daniel Craig his first acting experience!
Holly is married, and enjoys spending time with her two delightful grandchildren.
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
Holly Green writes historical sagas about love and war, and her books are inspired by the stories she heard from her parents when she was a child. Her father was a professional singer with a fine baritone voice and her mother was a dancer, but they hd to give up their professions at the outbreak of World War II.
Holly is from Liverpool and is a trained actress and teacher - her claim to fame being that she gave Daniel Craig his first acting experience!
Holly is married, and enjoys spending time with her two delightful grandchildren.
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
December 13, 2024
I really really need to read the next book in the series.
September 19, 2019
Hard to get into at first but picked up pace about 3 chapters in, was living it. Then gave up at about chapter 5.
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November 6, 2018I am very confused. I read another series called Daughters of War by Hilary Green and this book is identical. Maybe it's a reissue of those books? I was excited to read this but I didn't want to read the same book again. It's the same characters.
January 26, 2014
This was an easy read and the first book in the series. It wasn't remarkable but it was a good story. The main character Leo was an independant free thinking woman and I look forward to seeing how her story unfolds in the next book.
December 8, 2023
Brilliant
I loved reading this book about the trials and tribulations that Leo went through. It is amazing what a single minded young woman like her could achieve. She was fearless and put herself into dangerous situations to help the wounded war men. It was her relationship with Sasha that really caught my attention and hope to see that progress , in the next book of this series. It took some time to get used to all the foreign names of towns and people, it would have been easier to get to grips with them all in a glossary , in a printed book. This is not possible in the kindle version I was reading.
I loved reading this book about the trials and tribulations that Leo went through. It is amazing what a single minded young woman like her could achieve. She was fearless and put herself into dangerous situations to help the wounded war men. It was her relationship with Sasha that really caught my attention and hope to see that progress , in the next book of this series. It took some time to get used to all the foreign names of towns and people, it would have been easier to get to grips with them all in a glossary , in a printed book. This is not possible in the kindle version I was reading.
July 9, 2017
The story of a young privileged woman who joins others in supporting the war effort ( WW I) by learning first aid and expecting to help evacuate the injured from the battlefield. Of course, this lofty idea was squashed once they reached the war zone, so they learn how to nurse the sick and injured rather quickly. A very plausible scenario. Unfortunately, the author tries to add a note of romance to the story which I felt fell flat. Not sure I will continue the series.
April 22, 2019
Amazing read
One of the best books I've picked up so far this year! The author takes the reader on an adventure facing some heinous situations faced by a woman of the era in which it is set. Couldn't out the book down until had finished reading about Leonora's fate. Will definitely be out having the other books in this series
One of the best books I've picked up so far this year! The author takes the reader on an adventure facing some heinous situations faced by a woman of the era in which it is set. Couldn't out the book down until had finished reading about Leonora's fate. Will definitely be out having the other books in this series
June 29, 2025
A feel good saga about Leonora and her friend Victoria who after training with the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY) go off to Eastern Europe during the first Balkan war. Of course, Leo and Vita get in to scrapes along the way and also fall in love. Based on Mabel St Clair Stobart and The Stobart Nurses who fought for the rights of women to serve on the battlefield.
May 14, 2019
This is a saga book, but a bit different, it covers events in a really true to life way, no cosy armchair read here. It covers the period leading up to WW1, in parts of the world that I didn't know what took place in this period of time. So a bit of a history lesson for me.
June 7, 2018
I give all 3 books 4 stars across the books. They are a very quick read and enjoyable
October 10, 2018
Ooh goody: a new (to me) Hilary Green series to get stuck in to
December 1, 2018
Oh my god, this book was so good I would definitely recommend this to anyone who loves history of how women were treated.
April 3, 2022
Very light. Really enjoyed it an interesting story.
July 20, 2022
Unfortunately I didn’t connect with the characters in this book and found it a hard read..
April 15, 2012
One test of a good historical novel is that it leaves the reader with a sense of time and place - and of actual events - that spur further research or further reading in the era. This is one of the reasons why it's never a bad idea when two authors pick the same time period. As long as at least one of them is a worthwhile writer, the readership will transfer, wanting to gain more insight, more depth, a different view on the same world events.
By this standard, 'Daughters of War' succeeds admirably as a historical novel. Set in 1912 (and not a mention of the Titanic; thank you) it creates a fictional version of the lives of Mabel St Clair Stobart and Flora Sands. The former founded the Women's Sick and Wounded Convoy and, in 1912, led a group of nurses to care for Bulgarian soldiers in the chaotic mess of wars that scarred the continent and led, through the assassination of Arch Duke Ferdinand, to the First World War. The second, Flora Sands, was a member of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (yes, they really did choose to call themselves FANY, which is either stunningly naive or outstandingly ironic) who went as a volunteer to Serbia to join Stobart, was separated from her group and joined a company of Serbian soldiers.
So much for the - fascinating - fact. The fiction of this novel is based on two women: Victoria (Vita) and Leonora (Leo). The former is a racing driver, go-getter and apparently active political feminist, such as these things existed and her chance meeting with Leo, the core of the story, leads them both to join the FANY and then to run away to help the WSWC. The bulk of the narrative charts their journey there and their experiences of the genuine horrors or war, made all the more piquant because the reader knows that, horrendous as this is, it's nothing to what will have happened by 1918. Leo is caught away from her group and ends up, largely by default, cross-dressing, so that everyone around her, including the man with whom she is falling in love, thinks she's a boy and she dare not enlighten them. The denoument is both funny and moving and horribly plausible given the innate sexism of the time (one forgets how far we have come in 100 years. We owe so much to these women and now we watch the right wing barking-mad nutters of the Republican party trying to undo it all again: it's terrifying, truly).
The romantic narrative concerns Leo's unrequited and unrequitable (so far) love for a Serbian officer, her martinet brother, the British army officer who is her legal guardian and (of course) is more concerned by the family honour than her abilities, her fiancee, who is gay and loves her brother and Vita who doesn't seem to know what she wants, but it isn't the dashing New Zealander who loves her. This last was my one disappointment (leaving aside that we have a character named Vita and another that dresses as a boy: this book is firmly set in women's romance land and the only hint of gayness allowed is in the men, and even then, it has to be hidden) - that aside - I am used to meeting characters whom I may originally despise and learning to admire them. Very rarely do I meet a character whom I originally admire - Vita - and then come to despise. I suspect this is a feature where the exigences of plot over-rode the strength of the characters and it's sad, but overall, it doesn't detract from what is a moving, fascinating and immensely well-researched book.
What impressed me most was that the horrors of war are truly horrible here; none of the boy's own triple-f (fighting, fucking and farting) where men are courageous and die bravely, living by the sword and dying by it. The sensitive and artistic Tom may be frustratingly camp at times, but the moment when he has to shoot a critically wounded child is tender and grim at once, and very well handled.
Coming to the end, I ask my usual three questions:
- would I want to read more by this author? Definitely - and this is the start of a trilogy, so I can read more now, which is always good.
- would I want to read more of this period? Definitely
- would I want to write in this time period? Possibly. I doubt if I'll ever get a chance to do so, but there's such a wealth of memory there, still accessible to us, and it would be both a pleasure and a challenge to write of a time that was - just - in living memory.
By this standard, 'Daughters of War' succeeds admirably as a historical novel. Set in 1912 (and not a mention of the Titanic; thank you) it creates a fictional version of the lives of Mabel St Clair Stobart and Flora Sands. The former founded the Women's Sick and Wounded Convoy and, in 1912, led a group of nurses to care for Bulgarian soldiers in the chaotic mess of wars that scarred the continent and led, through the assassination of Arch Duke Ferdinand, to the First World War. The second, Flora Sands, was a member of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (yes, they really did choose to call themselves FANY, which is either stunningly naive or outstandingly ironic) who went as a volunteer to Serbia to join Stobart, was separated from her group and joined a company of Serbian soldiers.
So much for the - fascinating - fact. The fiction of this novel is based on two women: Victoria (Vita) and Leonora (Leo). The former is a racing driver, go-getter and apparently active political feminist, such as these things existed and her chance meeting with Leo, the core of the story, leads them both to join the FANY and then to run away to help the WSWC. The bulk of the narrative charts their journey there and their experiences of the genuine horrors or war, made all the more piquant because the reader knows that, horrendous as this is, it's nothing to what will have happened by 1918. Leo is caught away from her group and ends up, largely by default, cross-dressing, so that everyone around her, including the man with whom she is falling in love, thinks she's a boy and she dare not enlighten them. The denoument is both funny and moving and horribly plausible given the innate sexism of the time (one forgets how far we have come in 100 years. We owe so much to these women and now we watch the right wing barking-mad nutters of the Republican party trying to undo it all again: it's terrifying, truly).
The romantic narrative concerns Leo's unrequited and unrequitable (so far) love for a Serbian officer, her martinet brother, the British army officer who is her legal guardian and (of course) is more concerned by the family honour than her abilities, her fiancee, who is gay and loves her brother and Vita who doesn't seem to know what she wants, but it isn't the dashing New Zealander who loves her. This last was my one disappointment (leaving aside that we have a character named Vita and another that dresses as a boy: this book is firmly set in women's romance land and the only hint of gayness allowed is in the men, and even then, it has to be hidden) - that aside - I am used to meeting characters whom I may originally despise and learning to admire them. Very rarely do I meet a character whom I originally admire - Vita - and then come to despise. I suspect this is a feature where the exigences of plot over-rode the strength of the characters and it's sad, but overall, it doesn't detract from what is a moving, fascinating and immensely well-researched book.
What impressed me most was that the horrors of war are truly horrible here; none of the boy's own triple-f (fighting, fucking and farting) where men are courageous and die bravely, living by the sword and dying by it. The sensitive and artistic Tom may be frustratingly camp at times, but the moment when he has to shoot a critically wounded child is tender and grim at once, and very well handled.
Coming to the end, I ask my usual three questions:
- would I want to read more by this author? Definitely - and this is the start of a trilogy, so I can read more now, which is always good.
- would I want to read more of this period? Definitely
- would I want to write in this time period? Possibly. I doubt if I'll ever get a chance to do so, but there's such a wealth of memory there, still accessible to us, and it would be both a pleasure and a challenge to write of a time that was - just - in living memory.
December 30, 2012
Lots of stars for the historical part of the story - the women in England who formed and joined the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, and then the Women's Sick and Wounded Convoy, were fascinating and incredibly brave. Everything about that period and women nurses makes me think of Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth, which I saw televised and then read back in the late 70s. The restrictions faced by women, even experienced nurses, at a time of huge need, were huge, and the waste was shocking.
Anyway, the only problem with *this* book is that I hated the romance. Hated it! And I thought it was very interesting that Leonora, who shows such a great desire to be independent and a useful person with something to contribute, fighting her obnoxious, arrogant and authoritarian brother to do so, ends up in love with a Serbian officer who has NO time for women anywhere near battle, and who says he would have whipped her if she were his sister for the offence to the family honour. Y'know who else finds himself realising he'll never be free of his love for the obnoxious, arrogant and authoritarian male? The gay character, of course. (He's infinitely preferable to Leo's brother, but for this book, at least, he's hopelessly in love with him.) Gah.
Note on the audio: narrator had a lovely voice, which is part of what made me choose the audio, despite doubts, but did horrible accents, as I found out too late.
Anyway, the only problem with *this* book is that I hated the romance. Hated it! And I thought it was very interesting that Leonora, who shows such a great desire to be independent and a useful person with something to contribute, fighting her obnoxious, arrogant and authoritarian brother to do so, ends up in love with a Serbian officer who has NO time for women anywhere near battle, and who says he would have whipped her if she were his sister for the offence to the family honour. Y'know who else finds himself realising he'll never be free of his love for the obnoxious, arrogant and authoritarian male? The gay character, of course. (He's infinitely preferable to Leo's brother, but for this book, at least, he's hopelessly in love with him.) Gah.
Note on the audio: narrator had a lovely voice, which is part of what made me choose the audio, despite doubts, but did horrible accents, as I found out too late.
December 22, 2011
It will be interesting to see how the various storylines play out in books 2 and 3. This was a war in an era just before WWI that I was familiar with, but this particular war I did not know about. With today's relaxed mores and morals it's hard to take in the insult that our heroine's brother and the Colonel felt when Leo was discovered allowing herself to be thought of as male. I rather like Tom and the lengths he went to to help his friends and along the way sort of discovered himself as well. And, what the heck has happened to Victoria? We see her and her Sparky disappear on a train and that's the end of that...for now anyway.
Can't wait for the next installment!
Can't wait for the next installment!
April 22, 2012
I was very excited when I heard that Hilary Green was writing a new series, this time set before and during the First World War. I wasn't disappointed, especially since the friendship between the two central female characters was exactly what I've been looking for. On top of that we get girls dressing as boys, references to Twelfth Night, gritting war reporting from two secondary characters, and a world of differences in attitudes between those on, or close to, the front line of the Balkans Conflict, and those back in England. I can't wait for the next book to come out in paperback.
November 9, 2012
Not a light story but a lightly written story about a young woman's desire to make a difference in WWI by setting off from England to help an all woman's hospital by caring for the war's wounded. Historical novels are my favorite. This is the first of the Leonora Trilogy. So I'm on to read books two and three.
August 11, 2014
Several chapters in, I thought I would not bother to read the next but soon I was sucked in and will certainly track down the next installment. My sense is that there will be a happy ending for Leo but no chance for Tom who will probably end up dying on the fields of France.
I enjoyed learning bit more of the events leading up to the Great War from an eastern European perspective.
I enjoyed learning bit more of the events leading up to the Great War from an eastern European perspective.
February 2, 2012
I just stumbled on this by accident and loved it.
May 20, 2012
Can't wait for the sequels to come into print:)
December 19, 2014
Juvenile romance
August 3, 2014
Interesting, but would not recommend on account of the morals in this book.
October 15, 2015
Loved the Follies series but found this rather meh. I enjoyed the historical aspect, but wasn't able to warm to most of the characters. Will continue with the next two books.
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August 3, 2016A pretty good read about WWI. Some of it was a bit unbelievable, especially in light of the fact that the main character came from a wealthy family and had little experience in the world.
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews