Thursday, March 9, 2023, join us at FSU Panama City and enjoy mimosas, lunch and a presentation by international bestselling author Tracey Enerson Wood.
Wood's second book, The War Nurse is a vibrant and compelling historical fiction novel based on the true stories of the American nurses who served in World War I—battling social norms, brutal injuries, and a mysterious respiratory disease that swept the front lines. Despite its setting in 1918, The War Nurse is urgent and timely in its celebrations of healthcare workers who fought bravely and steadfastly against an indiscriminate enemy: a pandemic.
Author Tracey Enerson Wood is a retired registered nurse, and she was motivated by those “challenging and unheralded” years to write about her predecessors in the profession. In her research, she learned of Julie Catherine Stimson, who inspired this novel. “I wanted to stay in the same vein as The Engineer’s Wife,” Enerson Wood writes in her author’s note. “That is, to focus on a woman in American history who accomplished amazing things, yet whose story has been lost to time.”
Superintendent of Nurses Julia Stimson must recruit sixty-five nurses to relieve the battle-worn British, months before American troops are ready to be deployed. She knows that the young nurses serving near the front lines will face a challenging situation, but nothing could have prepared her for the chaos that awaits when they arrive at British Base Hospital 12 in Rouen, France. The primitive conditions, a convoluted, ineffective system, and horrific battle wounds are enough to discourage the most hardened nurses, and Julia can do nothing but lead by example—even as the military doctors undermine her authority and make her question her very place in the hospital tent.
When trainloads of soldiers stricken by a mysterious respiratory illness arrive one after the other, overwhelming the hospital’s limited resources, and threatening the health of her staff, Julia faces an unthinkable choice—to step outside the bounds of her profession and risk the career she has fought so hard for, or to watch the people she cares for most die in her arms. Based on a true story, THE WAR NURSE is a sweeping historical novel that takes readers on an unforgettable journey through WWI France. Cameos from Emily Warren Roebling, Claude Monet, and Marie Curie add further historical resonance to this energizing tale.
Readers of World War I fiction like Martha Hall Kelly’s Lost Roses and Marie Benedict’s Lady Clementine will devour this mesmerizing celebration of some of the most overlooked heroes in history: the fierce, determined, and brave nurses who treated soldiers in World War I and during the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918.
When: Thrusday, March 9, 2023 from 11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Where: FSU Panama City Holley Center, St. Joe Community Foundation Lecture Hall
Cost: $50 (price includes lunch and a signed copy of Ms. Wood's book, The War Nurse.)
Reserved your table of 8 today!
Books may be picked up in advance (by appointment) or at the event.
RSVP with the form below by March 1, 2023
After RSVP submission, please call (850) 770-2168 to make payment by credit card or make check payable to the "FSU Panama City Foundation" and send to:
Attn: Katie May
Office of Advancement
4750 Collegiate Drive
Panama City, FL 32405
For more information or special dietary needs email events@pc.fsu.edu or call (850) 770-2168.