2014 VNRN Awards

Its hour come round at last, this rough beast—the fifth annual Vintage Nurse Romance Novel Awards—is upon us once again. With a grand total of 271 reviews under my belt, I have cast my eye back over the 51 books by 37 different authors I read in 2014, and have pulled out those worthy of highest praise or lowest ignominy. The Best Authors category includes all the VNRNs reviewed for this blog, but only authors with more than one review are included; the One-Hit Wonders category is reserved for the best books by authors with only one review.

BEST BOOKS
A+   Nurse into Woman, Marguerite Mooers Marshall
A    Nurse Lily and Mister X, Diane Frazer (pseud. Dorothy Fletcher)
A    Small Town Nurse, Emily Thorne (pseud. Jeanne Judson)
A   Doctor’s Wife, Maysie Greig
A-    Hospital Zone, Mary Stolz
A-   Cruise Ship Nurse, Dorothy Daniels
A-   The Doctor’s Wife, Peggy Dern (pseud. Peggy Gaddis)
A-    Calling Dr. Jane, Adeline McElfresh


WORST BOOKS
D   Resort Nurse, Diana Douglas (pseud. Richard Wilkes-Hunter)
D+    Nurse against the Town, Jane Converse
D+    A Nurse to Marry, Patty Carr


BEST QUOTES
1. “Put two girls and a can opener in the kitchen, and you have a feast.” –Peggy O’More, Disaster Nurse

1. 2. “Hal Brent ordered: ‘Pucker, please.’ ” – Patty Carr, A Nurse to Marry
2. 3. “I don’t want every man present to regard my girl as though she were a lollipop.” –Margaret Howe, The Girl in the White Cap
3. 4. “Don’t worry your pretty bullet-singed head.” –Rose Dana (pseud. William Daniel Ross), Resort Nurse
4. 5. “I’d marry you for your cooking even if you were an old hag.” –Patricia Libby, Hollywood Nurse
5. 6. “Poppy—don’t fall in love with somebody famous before I get you down to the chili parlor tonight—okay?” –Suzanne Roberts, Celebrity Suite Nurse

7. “If I’m running a fever, baby, you’ve got only yourself to blame.” –Suzanne Roberts, Celebrity Suite Nurse

8. “There’s nothing better than a pizza in Japan.” –Dorothy Daniels, Cruise Ship Nurse

9. “Don’t kiss me again, not like that, not now—not when I’ve got to go back and do a skull series.” –Adeline McElfresh, Dr. Jane, Interne

10. “She put her cheek on one of the thin hands, the one without the needle.” –Teresa Holloway, Nurse Farley’s Decision

BEST COVERS

1. Hurricane Nurse

2. Nurse into Woman

3. Resort Nurse

4. Nurse Farley’s Decision

5. Cruise Nurse

 

 

BEST AUTHORS

1. Jeanne Judson (3.9 average, 3 reviews)
1. MargueriteMooers Marshall (3.9 average, 3 reviews)
3. Faith Baldwin (3.8 average, 4 reviews)
4. Maysie Greig (3.5 average, 2 reviews)
5. Ethel Hamill, pseud. Jean Francis Webb III (3.3 average, 4 reviews)
6. Elizabeth Hoy (3.3 average, 3 reviews)
7. Helen B. Castle, pseud. Frank Castle (3.3 average, 2 reviews)
7. Joyce Dingwell (3.3 average, 2 reviews)
9. Rose M. Banks, pseud. Alan Jackson (3.2 average, 4 reviews)
9. Patricia Libby (3.2 average, 3 reviews)

ONE-HIT WONDERS:
Best VNRNs by authors with one review
1.    “K”, by Mary Roberts Rinehart
2.    A Challenge for Nurse Melanie, by Isabel Moore
3.    Surgical Call, by Margaret Sangster
4.    Nurse Pro Tem, by Glenna Finley
5.    Walk out of Darkness, by Arlene Karson
6.    Woman Doctor, Alice Lent Covert
7.    Nurse Greer, by Joan Garrison
8.    Town Nurse—Country Nurse, by Marjorie Lewty
9.    Hospital Zone, by Mary Stolz