About the Author:
Catherine Cookson lived in Northumberland, England, the setting of many of her international bestsellers. Born in Tyne Dock, she was the illegitimate daughter of an impoverished woman, Kate, whom she was raised to believe was her older sister. She began to work in the civil service but eventually moved south to Hastings, where she met and married a local grammar school master.
Although she was originally acclaimed as a regional writer, in 1968 her novel The Round Tower won the Winifred Holtby Award, her readership quickly spread worldwide, and her many bestselling novels established her as one of the most popular contemporary authors. After receiving an OBE in 1985, Catherine Cookson was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1993. She died shortly before her ninety-second birthday, in June 1998, having completed 104 works.
From Publishers Weekly:
The latest from Cookson ( The Love Child ; The Bailey Chronicles ) is a perfunctorily plotted novel of tragedy and romance. After his father's death in 1926, five-year-old Joe Jebeau and his tyrannical mother, Ellen, move to his uncle Arthur's estate in northern England. As the years pass, Ellen becomes the mistress of the house, a position she plans to retain by any means necessary. By the onset of WW II, her greedy scheming has landed her son a title and an estate, but at the cost of the lives of the people he loves most. To escape his mother's madness, Joe joins the war effort, hiding behind the uniform of a common corporal and trying to bury his pain. When he believes himself betrayed by the woman he has loved since childhood, he sinks even deeper into despair. It takes plain but wise Maggie LeMan and her outspoken, down-to-earth aunt to break through the barrier Joe has constructed and teach him how to see the truth. Many of the story's emotional developments seem forced, especially Joe's agonizing and his eventual discovery of his feelings for Maggie. Cookson's contrived characterizations never fully engage her reader. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club alternates.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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