Nurse Christie Watson writes second book for Chatto

Chatto & Windus has bought another book from Christie Watson, nurse and bestselling author of The Language of Kindness (Chatto).

Clara Farmer, publishing director at Chatto & Windus, bought UK and Commonwealth, volume, audio and serial rights from Sophie Lambert at Conville & Walsh. The Courage to Care: A Call for Compassion will be published on 17th September 2020 in hardback, e-book and audiobook, which will be read by Watson.

According to the synopsis: “In The Courage to Care bestselling author Christie Watson reveals the remarkable extent of nurses’ work. A community mental-health nurse choreographs support for a man suffering from severe depression. A teen with stab wounds is treated by the critical-care team; his school nurse visits and he drops the bravado. A pregnant woman loses frightening amounts of blood following a car accident; and it is a military nurse who synchronises the emergency department into immaculate order and focus.

“Christie makes a further discovery: that, time and again, it is patients and their families – including her own – who show exceptional strength in the most challenging times. We are all deserving of compassion, and as we share in each other’s suffering, Christie Watson shows us how we can find courage too. The courage to care.”

Watson was a nurse for over 20 years and, in March, joined the Covid-19 emergency nursing register, working in critical care during the first peak of the coronavirus. Her non-fiction debut, The Language of Kindness: A Nurse’s Story (Chatto), was published in 2018 and has sold 172,145 copies across all editions through Nielsen BookScan's UK Total Consumer Market.

Farmer said: “The Courage to Care is not a book about the coronavirus crisis but this heartrending book about the nurses in our communities and the courage of the families and patients they treat, cannot fail to resonate with our lockdown era. We read about the child Christie nursed who died of AIDS complications when that virus was still baffling to us; we see hospitals struggle under the annual pressure of flu season when patients with weak lungs can become deeply unwell; and we learn how people in at-risk groups can be especially vulnerable to illness and harm of all kinds. These stories feel especially relevant now but they also represent two decades of Christie’s expertise and experience. The wisdom of nurses like Christie is ever more necessary and urgent, not just now but in the future. We are extremely lucky to have her.”