Showing results by author "Catherine Cookson" in All Categories

Roddy Greenbank was brought by his father to the remote Northumberland community of Langley in the autumn of 1807. Within hours of their arrival, however, the father meets a violent death and the boy is left with all memory of his past life gone. Adopted and raised by old Kate Makepeace, Roddy found his closest companions in Hal Roystan and Mary Ellen Lee. These three stand at the heart of a richly eventful narrative that spans the first half of the 19th century, their lives lastingly intertwined by the inexorable demands of a strange and somewhat cruel destiny.

In the mid-1850s, life for an orphan was grim, as Kirsten MacGregor discovered when her parents died suddenly on a journey to Northumberland, leaving her penniless and alone in the hands of a cruel farmer. Somehow, Kirsten survived her terrible childhood - only to be sold, at the age of 14, to a travelling tinker - a vicious man who held her captive until the fateful day they were separated during a storm. Rescued from the flood by the Flynn family, she gave birth to a child as the waters raged about her.

Prudence Dudley was a woman who appeared to have everything: an undeniably attractive woman who had already achieved considerable success as a novelist. Yet she remained at odds with life after her sad rejected childhood and a more recent deeply wounding emotional crisis. Nearing a breakdown, Prudence seeks support from her staunch and supportive Auntie Maggie, and flees to her rented cottage in the Lake District. They encounter the owner of the cottage, aggressive and overbearing David Bernard Michael McVeigh. In time, Pru comes to learn that his iron façade is not the whole man.

Bill Bailey, the rugged Liverpudlian, was now a fully fledged Tyneside building contractor, as staunchly loyal to his squad of workmen as they were to him. He had also met and married Fiona, a young widow with her own lovable family, to which she and Bill shortly added with the adoption of the orphaned Mamie. Life was good, but the economic climate was growing distinctly cloudy, and it was vital that Bill land the contract of a major development scheme. Competition was fierce, and when his men came under attack, Bill was sure that someone was out to spoil their chances for the job.

Two older brothers had taught Nancy Ann how to look after herself well enough, and she could hold her own with the roughest of the village children. But soon she had to muster her courage and fortitude to the full when the far greater challenges of a controversial marriage thrust her into womanhood and into a whole new world of conflict and tragedy which had to be faced and overcome.

Annabella LaGrange was the only child of a wealthy family, owners of a glassworks in the North-East of England. When Annabella was seven, she thought the world a delightful place to live in, and only occasionally wondered why her parents never took her beyond the gates of their magnificent country estate. When she was ten she decided that the seclusion didn't really matter because when she grew up she would marry her handsome cousin Stephen and never be lonely again.

Tilly was first a rich man's mistress, then a frontier wife, and now a widow. With her two children, half-blind Willy and her adopted daughter, Josefina, Tilly returns to Highfield Manor, where she'd started her life working as a nursemaid all those years ago. But Tilly is now a rich woman with Highfield, the estate and mine all hers. At 35, she is white-haired, but as spirited and as magnetic to men as ever. Her reputation as a witch continues to grow among the villagers, ever hostile and suspicious, but she is supported by faithful friends and warm memories.

Cock Shield Farm, 1881. After Molly Geary finds herself pregnant with landowner Angus McBain's child, she is left distraught and ruined. Dishonoured by being the secret mistress of McBain, she must find an alternative suitor to save her reputation, or else the threat of being discarded looms. McBain devises a plan to claim his employee, Davie Armstrong, as the father to Molly's child. Leaving the pair forced to marry, the issue appears resolved. But with secrecy comes consequences, and young Molly realises she is tied in a web of lies beyond what she could imagine.

The Broadhursts were a mining family and, to outsiders, they appeared to be happy, loyal and united. But it was Jinny—wife, mother, sister—who held them together. Her pride and her strength prevented their fears and hates from overwhelming them. There was Jack, her younger son, trapped into marrying a shrew; and Lottie, her sister, who was not quite...normal. And there was Larry, the bright one, the handsome one, who was obsessed with the memory of the girl who had jilted him.

Ever since her mother died, Martha Mary had had to take over the running of her home, a sprawling mansion called The Habitation. She did everything she could to make ends meet, but could not understand why they were in such financial straits - especially as when her mother was alive, they had several profitable businesses. She hoped that her father's frequent visits to Great-Uncle James would finally come good when he died, and they could sell his house to alleviate their great need of money.

In the brooding north country hills, a man and a woman fought for the passion they felt for each other that the world branded a disgrace. . .Agnes Thorman - the proud but forlorn mistress of a once-grand estate, whose society forbade her the man who was her equal in all but name. . .Robert Bradley - a gifted craftsman, as visionary and challenging as the dawning new age. He had yet to seize his dream, which could destroy the woman he loved. . .And Milicent Thorman - the strange, wise girl-child fated to play a part in the lovers' unfolding destiny. . .

The Batleys and the Caldwells owned neighbouring farms on the beautiful, wild Northumbrian coast. But there all similarity ended, and enmity began. For between the two families raged a violent and bitter feud. Into this stormy atmosphere came Linda Metcalfe, an agricultural student, who became involved in the tensions between the two households on her arrival. Employed by Ralph Batley, Linda soon found herself unwittingly a part of the feud, and began to feel a strange admiration for Ralph, who made it painfully clear that he didn't need her on the farm or in his life.

Someone had once told Emma Molinero, the daughter of an itinerant carnival performer, that she was made for trouble. Her earliest memories were of life with a travelling show - part fair and part circus - that toured the shires at the dawn of the Victorian era. But at the age of seven she found herself an orphan who, in accordance with her Spanish father's dying wishes, must now leave the warm and friendly community to live with an unknown English grandmother far to the north in County Durham. With her she took the whips and knives used with such dexterity by her father for his act.

Now that her brood had left the nest, Fanny McBride, a large, cheerful and indomitable Tyneside widow, had time to sit by her window and watch the goings-on outside. There was plenty to keep her occupied: the mystery of the new woman at Mulhattan's Hall, the tenement block (here a fortnight already and not so much as a hello); the long-standing feud with Mrs Flannagan; after-school visits from her grandson Corny. But Fanny had any intention of ending her days in lonely isolation. So when her friend Mary fell sick and couldn't work, it was Fanny who took her place.

When young Jinnie Howlett’s widowed father, a tinker man, died a pauper, she was already a reluctant inmate of a northern workhouse. But she thought herself fortunate - the alternative might have meant she ended up on the streets. When close to her 15th birthday and after years of toil and drudgery, she was at last offered a position as a maid-of-all-work.

Even as a child Barbara was beautiful, but as her beauty grew so did the affliction which shadowed it. She was becoming deaf. Yet living in an almost silent world protected her from what could be a worse affliction - to know the truth of her own origins. Barbara had another protector in Anna Brigmore, who knew that truth and was haunted by the thought it must one day be revealed to this girl she cherished like her own child. And among the surrounding hills and valleys of Northumberland, it was a long-relished scandal....

Only after returning from his well-attended funeral did Fiona Bailey realise just how much she would miss Davey Love. Despite her initial doubts and prejudices about this rough-hewn Irishman, towards the end of his life she had discovered qualities about him she had previously overlooked. Above all, it was his inherent kindness that she had failed to discern when she and her husband had first met Davey and his wayward son, Sammy.

Maisie doesn't understand why her mother can’t love her, but she knows that her life is hard and deeply unhappy. When her stepfather George, the only person she trusts, leaves, Maisie has no protector until she begins to escape. She could never be quite sure when she first met up with Hamilton; most likely it was when she started talking to herself. But she didn’t call him that then; that came much later when she was 14 and Doctor Kane had to pay her a professional visit....

Each generation of the Mallen family has been cursed with a dramatic white streak in their jet-black hair. Barbara does not have the visible streak to identify her as a Mallen, but she has spent her life trying to forget her parentage - and the horrific circumstances behind her birth. When her triplets - the Mallen litter - were born, she hoped that it would herald a new beginning. But it seems that one of her sons bears the Mallen streak - and that the Mallen curse will never die out....

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