Christine Trent

I'll never know what she was like in real life, but Florence Nightengale, as written by Christine Trent, makes one awesome character! She's firm but kind, intelligent and innovative. In this first book of a series, Florence is the new Superintendent of the Establishment for Gentlewomen, a small hospital in need of a lot of improvements that Florence is eager to enact. But after being in the position only a week, she finds a nurse who has apparently hung herself. Florence digs deeper and realizes that nothing is as it seems.… (mere)

Lady of Ashes is a historical fiction book about a woman who learned to be an undertaker from her husband in Victorian England. I was enchanted by Violet Morgan who never was interested in staying at home and managing the household. After she learned the business, she was better than her husband, being gentle and respecting the corpses and grievers more. In contrast, her husband was more interested in making money and getting revenge on the United State for the ill treatment of his father. Violet knew that he was involved in something nefarious but he refused to share it with her. I found myself rapidly reading about Violet but slowing down when it came to her husband

Violet accidently meets Prince Albert and consents letting him watch the prepation of an acquaintaince for a funeral. Violet discovered a bedraggled girl sleeping in one of the coffins at the business. Susannah, had lost her mother and was given to a workhouse with poor food and living conditions so bad that Violet decides it would be horrible to return the runaway girl to that terrible life.

The tale about Violet kept me reading, the book is first book of a series. I didn't to continue because I felt saturated with the embalming part. There are a lot of parts. One of the best was mystery of the serial killer. I was not able to guess it was and that pleased so much, there is abusive husband and a little bit of romance, a little humor and much weaving in of historical events. It was a very satisfying book to read.… (mere)

As a big fan of historical mystery was I very curious to see how this new series starring Florence Nightingale would be. And, to my utter delight is this the first book in a series absolutely wonderful!

For one thing is it wonderful to get to know Florence Nightingale a bit more, yes this is a fictional book, but I found that Christine Trent has really captured the spirit of the woman who decided to follow the call from God to sacrifice a normal life with a husband and children to work with the sick. A job that's pretty much as low ranking as a being a prostitute. Which one will notice when you read this book and getting to know the nurses a bit better. They are far away from today's nurses. Then, we have the fact that she had to give up the man she loved as well. How many of us would do that? And back in a time when women's main function was to marry, and marry well.

Then we have the mystery of the nurse that is found hanging in the library. While the police quickly rule it as a suicide isn't Florence buying that and since she is new on the job is this murder really nothing she wants at the moment (or any moment). Especially since the risk is that she will lose her new job if she doesn't quickly solve it. Hence, she suddenly has to play amateur sleuth. Which she is pretty good at doing. And, I love the fact that there were some many shady figures, secrets, strange things going on that I couldn't figure out who was behind it.

No Cure for the Dead is the first book in this series and I can't wait for the next book. I had high hopes that this book would be good, but I was blown away by the strength of the plot and how much I adored Florence and how much she impressed me.… (mere)