Once again Mary Stolz has written a perceptive and meaningful novel for young people which will assume its rightful place among her many other successful novels.

Set in a training hospital, this is the story of Honey Kirkwood, a nineteen-year-old student nurse. Her world alternates between the shell-like seclusion of Private Eight, where her patients are, and the limitless possibilities beyond its corridors.

Honey, like so many people her age, is looking for the answers to two questions. They are, Who am I? and Who is is everybody else? A gradual approach to some understanding of herself and others comes to Honey through her association with the many different people with whom she comes into contact — both in and out of the hospital zone.

Even before she reached her destination in the desolate mountain area of Appalachia, while she was still in the Kentucky lowlands, Hope Farrell, R.N., sensed that the upper region and the people who lived there were somehow different and separate from the folks in town, who did not expert her to last long as a public health nurse. Yet, far from being discouraged, Hope regarded her assignment as an adventure and a challenge. She was ready to accept the poverty, disease and ignorance and to become a one-woman force to abolish it.

Yet it appeared the apathy of the mountain people might be even stronger than her dedication, and that their resentment against the outlander might have lost her the battle even before it was fully joined.

Young Roxanna Blake, dedicated coronary care nurse, was sure that handsome Eric Newberg returned the love she felt for him. So when the magnetic skier left California for Mount Hood in Oregon to pursue his skiing career, Roxanna followed him. But her idyllic dream of a life with Eric seemed to hit snags as soon as she arrived.

The first problem was Jody Averill, a women’s competition skier who was also determined to compete for Eric’s affections. Then there was Devon Roberts, who had a maddening habit of popping up when the young nurse least expected him. Worst of all, there was Eric’s determination to sacrifice everything — even Roxanna — to become a skiing champion.

Six months before, Trudy Wellington had left Texas to assume a nursing position at Hollywood Hospital and had moved in with Lynn Larson, another nurse, in Lynn’s apartment in the Valley. Both girls enjoyed each other’s company, and they even worked the same late-night shift. All in all, dark-haired Trudy considered herself a lucky girl.

Then the devastating California earthquake struck — and after hours on end of calming the patients and attending to the injured brought into Emergency, Trudy learned that her apartment building had been demolished. At this point, she was near collapse, and handling the emergency cases with the testy young Dr. Peter Marshall had not helped to steady her already overwrought nerves.

It was Susan Harding, the lovely blonde actress, who came to Trudy’s aid. Susan, a patient who had suffered a leg injury, insisted that Trudy and Lynn make use of her empty Santa Monica home for the time being. Trudy was hesitant about accepting such a lavish offer, but Lynn was eager to be among the movie-star set — and they did need a place to stay.

The unexpected occurs more often then not as Trudy is introduced to the world of filmdom, a world removed from hospitals and doctors — and where she soon learns that the world “love” has a different meaning from her own.