Dee Andrews

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When Love and Duty Collide, How Do You Choose?

frontline medical works with patient in 1918 influenza pandemic

In 1918, Dr. Lorne Miller ponders a medical mystery. A young farm boy had knocked on his office door, his parents dying. Then, two young men unexpectedly died. Boys their age were perishing on the western front, not of the flu on the Kansas plains. Confounded by the growing threat and driven by duty, Lorne makes an agonizing choice he will regret the rest of his life. Seeking salvation, he pursues a vaccine and finds his serious and scientific self embroiled in a public health crisis, power struggles and politics.

Meanwhile, in defiance, his spirited daughter Helen joins the army to serve as a nurse on the front lines of World War I. Aboard the ship she sails for France, Helen discovers influenza among the troops and knows the infection has spread. Caught between her desire for independence, work as an anesthetist, and a budding romance with one of her patients, she too struggles with love and duty.

Committed to saving lives, Lorne and Helen—father and daughter, doctor and nurse—come to learn it’s easy to love and unbearable to turn away.

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“Love is the world’s oldest medicine. Your ability to give and receive love is your greatest gift and your greatest power. It is what will sustain you on every step of your journey ahead.”

—Vivek H. Murthy, 19th and 21st Surgeon General of the United States

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#amreading· 1918 Influenza Pandemic

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Vigilance Urged as Grip Wave Recedes

1918 Influenza Pandemic· Research

This headline from the New York Times could be talking about new cases of COVID-19 falling off, but it refers to the 1918 Spanish influenza. Then, too, New York was trying to find the fine line between optimism and pragmatism. “Health Commissioner Copeland was optimistic, but in discussing the figures he said that eternal vigilance was alone the price of…
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#amreading· Travel

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Hobos, Train Hoppers, Travelers

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#amreading· Travel

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Hobos, Train Hoppers, Travelers

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Hobos, Train Hoppers, Travelers· On Writing· Research

I started writing this novel some three years ago and from the start the working title A Good Man has guided me. Now that I’m near a finished manuscript, I thought I should put some time into how to title a novel. The story is a blend of a road novel and addiction lit, and tells the story of Cowboy