Julie Jones, Cape Canaveral Nurse by Suzanne Roberts

Julie Jones could be called a 'woman's book', not usually a compliment, although you often find a novel of independence and integrity within the covers.

Julie is happy to find a comfortable room in a couple's home rather than the nurse's quarters. Mara and Josh still act like newlyweds, with Mara worrying deeply about Josh's dangerous job as a parachutist-doctor, dropping into dangerous accident scenes to tend to trapped patients. One night, he brings home his friend and fellow parachutist doctor Brad Sheldon, who is quickly eager to take Julie on a date. Tall, good-looking, and sun-tanned, he is every girl's dream, yet Julie did not become a nurse to play footsie with a doctor. Suave but respectful of her duty as a nurse, they date, but she is wary of getting emotionally involved. By page 40, she has already told him her career comes first, and they part.

There are shifts at Cape Canaveral, but her main job is at the nearby Cocoa Beach hospital, where she works with the intelligent but unremarkable Dr. Philip Peters. A pediatric doctor, he plans to go back to a small town to practice. Soon, he is asking Julie to join him, knowing they have a friendship rather than a romance. Brad has moved on to Peggy, a brash young nurse who only cares about hooking a rich doctor husband. She can have Brad as far as Julie is concerned.

For such a light novel, I caught myself exclaiming out loud when one of the characters was killed; I was surprised at how invested I was. Brad returns with his feelings for Julie, Dr. Peters is in a car crash, and someone is badly burned in a fiery explosion at the Canaveral hangar. Death and infirmity don't happen in a romance, right? The capper is Julie finding cancer in her young nephew—the whole eye being removed in a delicate operation. It makes you long for those carefree dinner dates with Brad in his long, low, bright blue convertible.

This is 1963, and Brad is eager to join the next Apollo missions. They will need doctors on the Moon and on the other planets. Marrying a man who is into such danger is not Julie's plan. She must stop worrying about both Brad and Philip and concentrate on what was right for her, her career as a nurse.

This had well developed characters and for a simple story enough emotional content to shock me a few times. For a light day reading, I was pleasantly surprised. Why do I enjoy reading nurse/stewardess romances? Prognosis: Unknown to medical science.

If you are also attracted, Julie Jones was entertaining and recommended.

This was the third nurse novel by Suzanne Roberts. She wrote 28 others including Vietnam Nurse, Emergency Nurse, Crusading Nurse, Nurse In Alaska, Cross Country Nurse, Rangeland Nurse, and of course, Hootenanny Nurse.

Other nurse novels I have reviewed:

Flight Nurse by Adelaide Humphries

General Duty Nurse by Lucy Agnes Hancock

Student Nurse by Lucy Agnes Hancock

Nurse In Blue by Gladys Taber

1963 / Paperback / 127 pages