Laura is a nurse in a paediatric unit. On long, quiet shifts, she and her colleagues, clad in their different shades of blue, care for sick babies, handling their exquisitely frangible bodies, carefully calibrating the mysterious machines that keep them alive. Laura may be burned out. Her hands have been raw from washing as long as she can remember. When she sleeps, she dreams of water; when she wakes, she finds herself lying next to a man who doesn't...

This is the classic story of Randle Patick McMurphy, a criminal who feigns insanity and is admitted to a mental hospital where he challenges the autocratic authority of the head nurse.

It's 1948 and the nurses of the East End of London are making the most of life post-war. For Connie, things are looking rosy as she looks forward to planning a future with her sweetheart, Malcolm. But, as many a young bride-to-be has proved, the course of true love never did run smooth and Connie has to grapple with interfering mothers and Malcolm's reluctance to set the date. Life at work isn't all smooth sailing either. The newly-formed NHS is keeping...

When Cassie Jensen arrives on the intensive care ward in St Catherine's hospital, Alice Marlowe, the chief nurse, is fascinated by this young, beautiful woman who strikes her as familiar, and yet she doesn't know why. But then Alice is astonished to discover something about Cassie that she has been keeping secret from everyone, including her devoted husband and family - a secret that changes everything... Frank is a patient on the same ward who has...

Joan Wentworth, a newly qualified nurse, nearly faints from the ether whilst assisting the famous surgeon, Dr. Lancaster, and is promptly suspended from her job. That evening, when she pleads with him to reinstate her, she is surprised to be invited to work at his hospice that serves the poor hill people of Pennsylvania. Joan accepts; but on her arrival at the remote institute, she finds herself plunged into an atmosphere of menace and mystery. No...

Dublin, 1918. In a country doubly ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city centre, in a ward where expectant mothers who have come down with an unfamiliar flu are quarantined together. Into Julia's regimented world step two outsiders: Doctor Kathleen Lynn, on the run from the police, and a young volunteer helper, Bridie Sweeney. In the darkness and intensity of this tiny ward, over the course of three...

It's Christmas Eve 1920 when nine-year-old Abby Kirby's family is ripped apart by a terrible tragedy. Leaving everything she's ever known, she takes her younger brother and runs away to the tough existence of the Border farming community. Years pass and Abby becomes a beautiful young woman and falls in love, but her past haunts her, casting dark shadows. Furthermore, in the very place she's taken refuge is someone who wishes her harm. With her heart...

In 1944, 23-year-old Tess DeMello abruptly ends her engagement to the love of her life when she marries a mysterious stranger and moves to Hickory, North Carolina. Hickory is a small town struggling with racial tension and the hardships imposed by World War II. Tess's new husband, Henry Kraft, is a secretive man who often stays out all night, hides money from his new wife, and shows no interest in making love. Tess quickly realises she's trapped in...

In 1938, eighteen-year-old Phyllis Elsworth packs her bags, says goodbye to her anxious parents and sets off from her quiet seaside home for the Hackney Hospital in London's bustling East End, where she is to fulfil her dreams to train as a nurse. At first, it is a whirlwind of long days, hard work, new friends and plenty of mischief, but just ten months later Britain declares war on Germany and life at the hospital is transformed. Phyll's days become...

The war is drawing to a close and the men are coming home. But the struggles of the Sweet sisters continue... When Ruby finds John Smith in hospital, recovering from severe starvation courtesy of Changi jail, she vows to care for him, no matter what. And Mary soon learns that if her marriage is to flourish, she must go to Canada with her husband, leaving her family behind. As for Frances, she has fallen in love with a man old enough to be her father....