Doctor Frances Brakespeare is at last settling into the small cottage hospital, a change from the bustling London one she worked in before. Getting over the loss of Izzy, the lady who adopted her is proving to be very hard, because Izzy’s sister keeps hounding her viciously, claiming everything that Frances owns.
The hospital needs modernization and Frances is determined to do this. Opening a family planning unit adjacent to the mother and baby clinic, may not however go down well in rural Somerset in 1936 and soon Frances faces the opposition she expected from irate husbands and the Church as well.
The difficulties of dragging the hospital into the twentieth century is quite hard and you can see how diplomatic one has to be to achieve any kind of rapport. The support of the local lady of the manor helps to a great extent.
Though there are several small stories in this book like the blind son of the manor being helped in his rehabilitation, and the romance between Frances and the local vicar, it is Frances’s story mainly. A very readable story as well.
Sent by Boldwood Books for an unbiased review, courtesy of Netgalley
