Character Profile: Meet Matron Kathleen Fox

Today it's my pleasure to welcome saga author Donna Douglas back to the blog with an introduction to one of the central characters in her Nightingales series.  Regular followers of the blog will no doubt have spotted that I'm a huge fan of this series, having read most of the books in the series, as well as Donna's new Steeple Street series.

Since The Nightingale Christmas Show is the fourth festive Nightingale novel I’ve written, this time around I decided to try something different. Rather than writing one novel, I thought it might be fun to put together a collection of interlinked short stories. 

It’s Christmas 1945, and the staff of the Nightingale Hospital are putting on a festive show to cheer up the patients. But rehearsals have barely started before the sparks start to fly and old rivalries resurface. Can the nurses overcome the shadows of the past and pull together in time to save the show?

Each story looks at the same event from a different nurse’s viewpoint, from scatty student nurse Daisy to ambitious Assistant Matron Charlotte Davis. But as ever, holding it all together is Matron Kathleen Fox. 

As regular Nightingale readers will know, Kathleen has been through some tough times over the years. She has seen her beloved hospital almost destroyed in the Blitz, lost friends and even sacrificed her chance at love out of duty to the Nightingale. But war has wearied her and now she’s faced with restoring the hospital to its former glory, she wonders if she’s up to the task any more. So when the chance comes to leave the Nightingale and reunite with her past love, James Cooper, she finds herself caught in an agonising dilemma. But will she stay or will she go? You’ll have to read The Nightingale Christmas Show to find out!

I’ve put it together so that each short story can be enjoyed on its own, but they all link together at the end for a dramatic finale that hopefully will make you laugh – and cry. 

I had so much fun writing The Nightingale Christmas Show and I hope you enjoy reading it. Happy Christmas!

It's Christmas, 1945. The war is over, but its scars remain. 

Matron Kathleen Fox has the job of putting the Nightingale Hospital back together. But memories and ghosts of those lost fill the bomb-damaged buildings, and she wonders if she is up to the task. 

In the name of festive cheer Kathleen decides to put on a Christmas Show for the patients. The idea is greeted with mixed feelings by the nurses, who are struggling with their own post-war problems. And the newly-formed rivalry between newcomer Assistant Matron Charlotte Davis and ward sister Violet Tanner isn’t helping matters. 

As rehearsals begin however, it seems the show isn’t just a tonic for the patients – could the Nightingale Christmas Show be just what the doctor ordered for the nurses too?

Thanks to the lovely Jasmine at Arrow Publishing I have 2 copies of The Nightingale Christmas Show, which I will be reviewing soon, to give away to followers of the blog (UK & Ireland only I'm afraid), enter via the Rafflecopter form below.

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