Overview

A richly-detailed and compelling historical saga for fans of Dilly Court, Sheila Newberry and Rosie Goodwin! Una Kelly has grown up to be a rough-and-tumble grifter, able to filch a pocketbook in five seconds flat. But when another con-woman pins her for a murder she didn't commit, Una is forced to flee. Running from the police, Una lies her way into an unlikely refuge: the nursing school at Bellevue Hospital. Based on Florence Nightingale's nursing principles, Bellevue is the first school of its kind in the country. Where once nurses were assumed to be ignorant and unskilled, Bellevue prizes discipline, intellect, and moral character, and only young women of good breeding need apply. At first, Una balks at her prim classmates and the doctors' endless commands. Yet life on the streets has prepared her for the horrors of injury and disease found on the wards, and she slowly gains friendship and self-respect. Just as she finds her footing, Una's suspicions about a patient's death put her at risk of exposure, and will force her to choose between her instinct for self-preservation, and exposing her identity in order to save others... Readers love this book: 'Definitely a book worth reading...I loved the plot and got caught up in it' Mary 'Different to anything I've read recently...Great characters and a gripping story, this book had it all' Wendy 'So much more than your usual historical saga...Great storyline and I really enjoyed the character of Una and her fight to better herself from humble beginnings' Angela 'The cover says that lovers of Dilly Court would enjoy this book...I for one did...as well as enjoyable I also found myself learning a lot too!!!' Liza

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9780008549893

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Reviews

Praise for The Second Life of Mirielle West Scrupulous in her research and practically clairvoyant in her choice of urgent subjects - from the Indigenous boarding schools of her first novel to the disease and quarantine of The Second Life of Mirielle West - historical novelist Amanda Skenandore has quietly become one of the valley's finest authors. -The Las Vegas Review Journal Despite being a fictional work, in her book The Second Life of Mirielle West Amanda Skenandore has used her medical background as a registered nurse-and her storytelling skills as a writer-to describe the sorrows experienced by patients with leprosy who were quarantined at the Carville Leper Home, a hospital in Louisiana that used to provide quarantine and treatment services for leprosy in the USA throughout the 20th century. -The Lancet

Author Information

Amanda is an award-winning historical fiction writer and registered nurse. Her first novel, Between Earth and Sky, won the American Library Association's Reading List Award for Best Historical Fiction. She grew up in the Colorado Rockies but now lives in Las Vegas with her husband and their pet turtle Lenore.

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