num_pages: 380
description: Sometimes, fate shatters the best-laid plans. In 1974, Elise, a young Belgian woman, loves being a nurse and thinks she has her entire future planned. Unfortunately, an inexplicable event turns her life upside down as she wakes up on a battlefield in 1706 in what was then called the Southern Netherlands.Upon learning that she can never return to her time, she reluctantly accepts that she must comply with society's archaic and oppressive rules regarding her gender. Only two options are available for her life: marriage or joining a religious order. She wishes to pursue her nursing vocation, but she would need to become a nun and abandon her independence. Elise has many suitors, but none of them understand her dreams for a life of purpose-until she meets a dashing British officer. However, she is a commoner, and his aristocratic parents oppose their union.Along her journey in a war-torn world, Elise encounters multiple challenges. Severe weather, famine, epidemics, and hundreds of wounded soldiers test her nursing skills. Something worse tests her courage. Extremists gathering support for their political ambitions accuse independent-minded women of witchcraft. Risking far more than her freedom, she must face them armed only with her capacity for compassion.
title: The Fourth Sword
publisher: Independently Published