Helen Wells – författare

Cherry has finally been discharged from the Army and is back to civilian life. What should she do next after her intense years of Army nursing? Dr. Joe finds her a job as the private nurse of a celebrated musician suffering from a dangerous heart condition. How can Cherry help him avoid the deadly stress his devoted sister unintentially causes when she visits fortuneteller after fortuneteller? Will their family secret be revealed?

Cherry reunites with her old Spencer classmates Gwen, Bertha, Josie, Vivian, and Mai Lee, when they all decide to take an apartment together in New York City, and work for the Visiting Nurse Service of New York. Greenwish Village is a far cry from Hilton, Illinois, and farm-raised Bertha is ready to mutiny when she tries to cook in their tiny kitchen. Assigned to a specific neighborhood, Cherry marvels at the many countries her patients come from--and is determined to resolve the loneliness of a few of them by having them all meet at an "Around the World" Dinner at the local settlement house. But who is the mysterious woman who lives in the Victorian mansion at the center of her district? Why hasn''t she been seen by anyone in the past 18 years?

The war is over, and Cherry is sent home. Her new assignment is working in a veteran''s hospital, where she finds her biggest challenge in raising the spirits of men who have lost arms, legs, or other body parts. Will they be welcomed back to their families and able to work again? Jim Travers, the woodworker who has lost a leg and was the sole support of his elderly mother, isn''t convinced. But he finds he is of critical assistance to Cherry as she tracks the mysterious thief who has robbed the Veteran''s Centeer of a medicine that can help a small boy recover from a deadly disease.

In order to become a flight nurse, Cherry Ames, already a professional nurse of skill, compassion, and courage, completes six weeks of intensive training that prepares her ñ and others ñ to fly in winged ambulances to every American battlefront on the globe ñ to places where wounded men need their help fast.

Her home base turns out to be in England, and when her childhood mentor, Dr. Joe Fortune learns of this, he entrusts Cherry with the story about an English family whose house had been bombed, killing the mother and leaving a small child to be cared for by her grandmother, Mrs. Eldridge. It was the behavior of the childís father, Mark Grainger, that disturbed Mrs. Eldridge sufficiently for her to have contacted Dr. Joe.

Now Dr. Joe turns over this mysterious set of circumstances over to Cherry, asking her to do all she can to help this family, while managing to be discrete.

There is no dearth of action, mystery, mission, love, and caring as the story wends its way to its exciting conclusion and Cherry finally returns home to Hilton, Illinois, looking forward to her next adventure--Cherry Ames Veterans Nurse!

Cherry''s natural curiosity leads her to discover a secret room in the reconstructed ch‚teau now used as a girls'' boarding school. There she finds a formula that when recontructed to its exact specifications produces a perfume that saves the school from bankruptcy.

Cherry''s first aid center is adjacent to the antiques department of a large department store, where a series of thefts have pointed the finger of suspicion at a young, recently widowed employee. But Cherry''s instincts say otherwise, and her tenacity helps uncover the truth.

While working as a camp nurse, Cherry follows a trail that ultimately leads to the true perpetrator of a series of robberies and exonerates a hard-woarking young man who had been under suspicion.

The third boxed set, Cherry Ames Boxed Set 9-12, contains four early Cherry classics: Department Store Nurse, Camp Nurse, Boarding School Nurse, and Cruise Nurse!

One of the strangest cases of Cherry Ames'' absorbing career comes her way while working as a staff nurse at Hilton Hospital in her home town. A young man, victim of a car accident, is brought to Emergency with a broken leg. Shortly after he is admitted to the hospital, the doctors discover that "Bob Smith" has been suffering from amnesia for several months.

Who is he? Where is his home? What tragic happening caused such distress that his memory is a blank? Answers to these questions must be found if "Bob" is to be cured.

Working under the direction of the medical and psychiatric doctors, Cherry plays a crucial role in helping the patient to get well and to find a solution to the dilemma that caused his "flight from memory." Clues develop as the psychiatrist uses various techniques to help the patient recapture his lost memory. "Bob Smith" insists that he is guilty--but of what he cannot recall. During her free time, Cherry follows up obscure clues and encounters suspiciously difficult people and an alarmingly tangled situation.

Here is a fascinating story that will be long remembered by the lovable nurse heroine''s legions of admirers, both young and young at heart.

Little does Nurse Cherry realize when distinguished Sir Ian Barclay is rushed by his nephew Lloyd to Hilton Hospital that her newest case will carry her north to misty, sea-beaten Balfour Island, off the rugged coast of wind-swept Newfoundland. "Sudden hemorrhage of a peptic ulcer," Dr. Joe Fortune had quickly diagnosed, and Cherry is assigned to care for the truculent but endearing old Scotsman. Cherry soon suspects that more than illness is worrying the peppery owner of the Balfour Iron Mines, and her suspicions only deepen upon their arrival at Barclay House on Balfour Island.

True, there is trouble at the mines. But the mysterious actions of Sir Ian''s erstwhile friend, Jock Cameron, force Cherry to conclude that trouble of even greater consequence is in the making. What hold does the industrialist Broderick have over Sir Ian? Who is "Little Joe" Tweed, and why does his trawler Heron ride at anchor off Balfour Island?

The startling solution to this baffling mystery waits for Cherry in three different places: deep in the salt-stained recesses of Rogues'' Cave, in the musty tower room of Barclay House, and in the hole on the hill. But first Cherry must face the effects of an island storm, as she and the island doctor struggle to save the crew of a shoal-wrecked boat.

As a public health nurse in Iowa, Cherry works with federal authorities to quash the manufacture and distribution of a bogus remedy and discovers the secret of a decrepit, abandoned farmhouse.

When Cherry Ames learns that the new patient in her ward is using the proceeds from her deceased husband''s life insurance to speculate in stock, she judges her foolish. And when the young woman explains the Pell Corporation investment program, Cherry suspects that her patient is being swindled.

Even more serious, Peggy Wilmot is jeopardizing her health. For emotional tension over the delayed arrival of her weekly dividend check is retarding her recovery. But how can Cherry influence the headstrong young woman who seeks financial help from the wrong people? Find out the truth about the Pell Corporation, Cherry decides, and let the facts speak for themselves.

Some of the vital questions to which Cherry must find the answers are: What are the Pell Corporation''s actual operations as distinguished from the fantastic claims made in its impressive brochures? Is the mysterious Cleveland Pell really the financial wizard he claims to be? Busy with ward duty and a training program for teen-age junior volunteers at Hilton Hospital, Cherry does not have much time for another extracurricular task. But the plight of Peggy Wilmot is too serious to be ignored.

What Cherry learns in the mysterious world of the "high finance" confidence game will surprise the reader as much as it does America''s favorite nurse heroine.

The fourth boxed set, Cherry Ames Boxed Set 13-16, feature four stories written after Helen Wells took the franchise back from Julie Tatham. They are: Hilton Hospital Nurse, Island Nurse, Rural Nurse, and Staff Nurse.

When Cherry Ames is offered a temporary assignment to help establish a health clinic in a small native African village, she sees it as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Not only will she be visiting a strange and exciting part of the world--but, more importantly, she will have a chance to help the underprivileged people of a very poor country.

But no sooner has the clinic been built than Cherry finds herself caught up in the midst of a mysterious chain of events. Rough diamonds are being smuggled out of Africa--and Cherry''s acute observations lead her to believe that the clinic itself is the base of the smugglers'' operations!

By carefully putting together obscure bits and pieces of evidence, and at great personal danger to herself, Cherry sets a trap for the criminals.

How the alert and pretty young nurse from the United States manages to put an end to an international smuggling ring provides a whirlwind finish to a fascinating story of mystery and intrigue.

As a doctor''s office nurse in New York City, Cherry Ames faces new challenges and makes some extraordinary new friends. First in importance is her dynamo of an employer, Dr. William Fairall. Glamorous theatrical patients flock to his Victorian brownstone offices. His assistant, young Dr. Grey Russell, plays a vital role in Cherry''s eventful summer--and so do funny little elderly Dr. Lamb and the strangely moody medical secretary Irene Wick.

Among the interesting, colorful people Cherry meets are a stricken ballet dancer, her handsome actor husband, and their adorable baby, who move into the vacant top floor of the brownstone.

And when her nurse friends, with whom she shares an apartment in Greenwich Village, inherit an old house near a beach in a charming summer resort area of eastern Long Island, Cherry foresees especially gay, carefree weekends.

But Cherry''s expectations are soon shattered. Confronted by a mysterious, alarming series of events, the pretty nurse finds that she needs all of her detective skills when the clue of the dinosaur plunges her into the center of intrigue.

Cherry Ames is thrilled to be working in a picturesque ski resort town in the Swiss Alps. The town''s only doctor has employed her to assist him in his ten-bed hospital.

Within 24 hours after starting her new assignment, Cherry encounters a hostile, menacing patient who seeks emergency medical care at the hospital. A few days later, other suspicious persons turn up at the hotel where she is living, and Cherry finds herself deeply enmeshed in an unknown danger.

Val Nicholas, a handsome ski instructor, helps Cherry to track down the source of the mysterious danger. Together, Val and Cherry undertake a perilous journey on skies, to protect her own life and to save the life of a sick man who is being victimized. It takes all of the vivacious and pretty young nurse''s courage and stamina to expose an ingenious racket and trap a group of ruthless criminals.

The fifth boxed set, Cherry Ames Boxed Set 17-20, contains Cherry''s final adventures in four pulse-pounding mysteries: Companion Nurse, Jungle Nurse, The Mystery at the Doctor''s Office, and Ski Nurse Mystery.

The first boxed set, Cherry Ames Boxed Set 1-4, introduces our beloved heroine in her four earliest adventures: Student Nurse, Senior Nurse, Army Nurse, and Chief Nurse!

With a heart of pure gold and a true yearning to make a difference in the world, eighteen-year-old Cherry Ames leaves her hometown and enters nursing school, embarking on a lifetime of adventures. Follow Cherry through the introductory four-book set as she grows from student nurse to chief nurse, all the while making friends, pushing the limits of authority, leading her nursing colleagues, and sleuthing and solving mysteries. Smart, courageous, mischievous, quick-witted, and above all, devoted to nursing, Cherry Ames meets adventure head-on whereever she goes.

The second boxed set, Cherry Ames Boxed Set 5-8, contains four early Cherry classics: Flight Nurse, Veterans'' Nurse, Private Duty Nurse, and Visiting Nurse.