The isolated island needed a doctor and a nurse desperately. Lea decided it was just the place for her overworked, widowered father to relax and still keep his practice. She accepted their peaceful life…until love walked in.

“You are so obsessed with the thought of being a martyr that you will sacrifice anybody and anything to that goal!”

Noel Harper’s words stung Nurse Lea Malvern. She was torn between two loves — her love for her father and the islanders…and her love for Noel, the handsome writer who came to Burford’s Landing to research the island’s history and search for buried treasure. Lea’s days became strained as she secretly wrestled with her conflict amid the gossip and suspicion on the isolated island.

Apparently Valentine Book employed Rob Petrie’s sleepwalking brother Stacey in its titles department.

Nurse Fern Heatherly had travelled from England to California with a patient and then decided she might as well stay for a while, so she accepted the job of looking after the elderly Miss Kingdom.

Her troubles began when Miss Kingdom’s nephew was seen leaving Fern’s room in the early hours of the morning. It was all completely innocent, but Ross chivalrously insisted on marrying her to protect her reputation.

But Fern, being very much in love with him, wanted a better reason than that.

I can’t decide which name I like more: Fern Heatherly or Violet Winspear.

When she goes up to Maine to take care of Priscilla Scott, a spunky old lady recovering from a stroke, Nurse Hillary Holt’s life becomes a jumble of love and fear. For there, at the isolated castle known as Eagle’s Watch, Hillary meets handsome Dr. Kent Harry, who is clearly attracted to her but cannot express his feelings.

Hillary also meets Priscilla Scott’s greedy relatives, all of whom are convinced she’s after the old lady’s wealth. Even Mitchell, the most appealing family member, is frankly interested in money and assumes the young nurse feels the same way. Worse yet, he — or one of the others — seems ready to commit murder to get rid of Hillary!

Nurse Lucie found the small country clinic at Guale Farms a paradise. But the two men she fell in love with complicated that paradise.

A Troubled Paradise

Nurse Lucie Hatcher walked head-long into another world when she arrived at the small Georgia clinic at Guale Farms, eager to work with the skilled Dr. Wesley Warren. Lucie didn’t plan to get involved with the handsome young doctor, nor with the rich owner of the experimental farms, Perry Latham. But she did…with both.

Then, suddenly, women from Wesley’s and Perry’s lives appeared and disrupted Lucie’s paradise. Could she give Wesley up to the mysterious woman from his past? Could she fight the powerful and jealous Latham family for Perry’s love? Lucie’s paradise soon turned into a nightmare…

That’s an unfortunate bit of paper loss on the front cover. Not because it obscures the handsome doctor’s face, but because I wish it were 1/4″ lower so he’d look like he had Rip Taylor’s mustache.

This is actually a Valentine reprint of Nurse Lucie, but I much prefer almost everything about the original: the title, the jacket blurb, the cover illustration, and (especially) the title font.

Karin Douglas was leaving Houston Research Clinic forever. A man whom she had dated a few times, Ben Jarome, had committed suicide. The note he left gave the impression that Karin had led him on, then thrown him over. People were willing to accept the distortion rather than ferret out the truth. Ben’s father was influential in the city of Houston. The suicide headlines had blazed across every paper in the city. Her picture along with Ben’s appeared in the tabloids. Karin had to make a new life for herself. But, she thought, was she making a mistake? Was running away always foolish?

As she pulled up to the rooming house in Richardson, a small suburb of Dallas, doubts continued to assail her. And at Mrs. Grummy’s rooming house her composure was at once put to the test. Books filled her room, the result of a vanity press swindle of her new landlady.

Karin’s first day of work was not much more auspicious. Almost immediately she was met with rudeness and impatience by her work partner, Jessica. Unwittingly Karin had made an enemy, one whose ingenuity might threaten her new job at Playland Park General First Aid–and her future. Karin had promised herself after the Houston scandal to concentrate on her job and future, that men–all men–were off limits. Including Mac Franklin, an amiable young worker-pianist at Playland Park, and Dr. Lance Pickford, a sophisticated ladies’ man. How to hold on to her job and at the same time hold off two men test Karin Douglas’ mettle to the extreme.