White Stockings 1 & 2: Spit & Polish / Bib & Tucker
About this ebook
Spit & Polish
Ruth was delighted when she was accepted into the nursing school at Kingston General Hospital. But she didn't realize how challenging it would be. She quickly finds her skills aren't up to snuff and is sent to build them up as an aide at the local tuberculosis sanatorium. It's 1946, and when Ruth arrives, she is immediately surrounded by crowds of wounded and infected soldiers, women, and children. Ruth must find her way among the dying, depressed, and too-friendly patients, managing demanding doctors and a jealous mentor, without being sent home or infected. Can she impress her seniors and be readmitted to the nursing program she so wants?
Bib & Tucker
It's 1947, and Ruth Maclean has returned to nursing school at Kingston General Hospital, only to find she is on her own for yet another placement, this time in the former Rockwood Insane Asylum, now the Ontario Hospital. Ruth must confront the moral dilemmas of early mental health treatments, from electroshock to lobotomies. Can she trust herself, her colleagues, and the men who surround her, or will this be a repeat of her troubles of the year before in the TB Sanatorium? As she struggles to understand mental illness in a challenging medical and personal landscape, Ruth finds growth, connection, and hope.
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About the author
Dorothyanne Brown, BNSc, MSc, former RN, is writer, editor, and occasional fibre artist. Her three children and their partners (and grandchild) are far away, so she lives instead with a recently adopted huge orange cat named Norm. She had to retire in 2008 from health services management due to multiple sclerosis. Since retirement, she has written three novels and several short stories, edited several novels and memoirs, and contributed fibre art to several juried fairs and art galleries. She's trained in developmental, substantive and line editing and teaches a course in self-editing in Kingston, ON.
Dorothyanne has been writing ever since her disastrous first poetry book (self-written, grade 4, filled with angst and fortunately lost to posterity). Some years ago she started writing and submitting in earnest, articles and short humour pieces, which were published in a variety of journals. She won the "Bony Pete” for a mystery story in 2010, got an honourable mention for another mystery at the Wolfe Island Scene of the Crime Festival, and was shortlisted for another story in both the 3daynovel and the Ken Klonsky novella contest through Quattro. She went on to publish that story as Recycled Virgin in 2020.
