The astonishingly rich prize of the 1956 Australian Women's Weekly cookery competition offers two women the possibility of a new kind of future, in this compassionate look at the extraordinary lives of ordinary women - our mothers and grandmothers - in a beautifully realised post-war Australia.<br/><br/><br/>It's 1956, and while Melbourne is in a frenzy gearing up for the Olympics, the women of Australia are cooking up a storm for their chance to win the equivalent of a year's salary in the extraordinary Australian Women's Weekly cookery contest.<br/><br/>For two women, in particular, the prize could be life-changing. For war widow and single mum Ivy Quinn, a win would mean more time to spend with her twelve-year-old son, Raymond. Mother of five Kathleen O'Grady has no time for cooking competitions, but the prize could offer her a different kind of life for herself and her children, and the chance to control her own future.<br/><br/>As winter turns to spring both women begin to question their lives. For Kathleen, the grinding domesticity of her work as a wife and mother no longer seems enough, while Ivy begins to realise she has the courage to make a difference for other women and tell the truth about the ghosts from her past.<br/><br/>But is it the competition prize that would give them a new way of seeing the world - a chance to free themselves from society's expectation and change their own futures - or is it the creativity and confidence it brings?<br/><br/>Praise for Victoria Purman<br/><br/>'Heart-achingly raw yet filled with the beauty of the human spirit, [The Nurses' War] is a triumph that will linger in the heart and psyche.' Karen Brooks, author of The Good Wife of Bath<br/><br/>'A richly crafted novel ... [The Women's Pages] graphically depicts life during those harrowing years. A touching tale and an enthralling read.' Reader's Digest