Claire Rayner

434 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : 24 cm

A hospital romance about a lonely young girl, who leaves behind her sheltered upbringing when she begins training as a nurse and discovers an exciting new life within the hospital's social circle. Originally published under the name of Sheila Brandon.

The man admitted to casualty was a Polish seaman - an emergency - in urgent need of an abdominal operation. Four hours later, he died ''accidentally''. From then on, the "accidents'" became more frequent - and more violent.

Pregnant with another man's child, Elizabeth Pike returns home to find her husband, already distraught over an IRS audit, with a letter from her lover and a gun in his hands.

152p

Nurse Avril Gardner had one great ambition, to become a Gold Medallist, even if it meant losing her friends and rejecting the love of Dr. Dickon Bartlett. She knew she was right, especially when the handsome new Registrar agreed with her. Before long she found herself falling in love with him.

For a widow with small children, a job at the local school should be ideal, but Hattie joins the Foundation with misgivings, to help look after the first intake of girls in the sixth form. There are problems with the teachers, and with the girls, and then a series of accidents. Determined to get at the truth, Hattie's well meaning meddling threatens to expose something more terrible than she culd have imagined, while, at the same time she finds her life filling with emotions she buried with her husband, and which she is not ready to feel again