Catherine O'Connor has a wild streak in her, as vivid and colourful as the red hair that cascades about her shoulders. Courageously she has flouted convention to become the mistress of the man she loves, Boyo Hopkins, thereby making a dangerous enemy of the woman he has married.Bethan Hopkins is ...
Shanni Price is a spirited, lively girl, but her tragic and poverty-stricken life has given her little chance to enjoy herself. Then, at a moment of dreadful despair, she is given protection by lovely, wealthy Llinos Mainwaring, and goes to live with her at the famous pottery in Swansea. Llinos, ...
"Copper Kingdom" is set at the turn of the century in the South Wales town of Sweyn's Eye - the old name for Swansea, where Iris Gower has lived all her life. The story centres around two families and one woman. The families clash through years of class welfare, drama, heartache and love affairs,...
Emmeline Powell had been born a country girl, in a small, whitewashed cottage on Honey's Farm. When her father died, Emmeline, bereft and lonely, married Joe Harries, a man much older than herself and one of the fishermen of Oystermouth. The wives of the oyster catchers were sturdy, stoic women, ...
Bridie Marchant had been brought up with every advantage, a wealthy background, a convent education, and a father who eventually willed her a fleet of merchant sailing ships. When she married Paul Marchant it seemed a perfect match, for Paul, owner of a much smaller fleet of ships, could take car...
Rosie, sixteen, beautiful and vivacious, is in love with Watt Bevan, the manager of the famous Mainwaring Pottery. Content to adore him from afar, when he comes to her seventeenth birthday party she realizes that he is the only man she will ever love. But Watt, unaware of her feelings, is becomin...
I knew I was jealous of her and I hated the way she and Michael had looked at each other. Aunt Jessie talked to me about it and I listened; she knew Michael better than anyone in the world. She was his mother after all, even if she wouldn’t admit it. I knew she had her reasons; Auntie Jessie alwa...
As she was so near, it would be silly simply to turn around and walk back to town. In any case, she was thirsty; she would beg a drink of water drawn from the sweetness of the well, the well that once, when she was a child, she used to believe was a magic one that would grant her every wish. The ...
Dew gently dusted the grass beneath Joe’s feet as he walked towards the house in the hollow of the valley. He had arrived too late at the coaching inn. Llinos and her party had already left. Fortunately, one of the grooms had overheard the servants talking and knew which direction the coach was t...
Emily, entering the drawing-room, stood for a moment, watching her aunts in their black mourning silk and jet beads and, for a moment, they appeared like birds of prey, dark and menacing in the dim light. The family had gathered to mourn the death of Thomas Grenfell, weighed down by the shame of ...
There were few houses in the village, some of them meandering up the slope of the wooded hillside like white mushrooms grown at random. A sprinkling of public houses had been strategically built along the main thoroughfare for the convenience of the local colliers and, towards the perimeter of th...
And, as usual, he’d brought a huge amount of equipment with him. As he alighted from his taxi he looked up at the windows and waved. I stepped outside to greet him and glanced upwards, but I couldn’t see anything. ‘Who were you waving at Colonel?’ I asked, and he winked at me and tugged his littl...
‘Nothing, you idiot!’ ‘I’m not an idiot! You’re always talking about those cops, especially Matthew Brown, and then I catch you with the guy in Green’s Wine Bar. What am I supposed to think?’ ‘You didn’t catch me, I was having a lunch-break and happened to see Matthew. What’s wrong with that?’ ‘I...
Looking at him now over the scrubbed table in the little hut Rhiannon could see from the slope of his broad shoulders and the lack of spark in his eyes that he was unhappy. She knew that her chat with Katie was to blame, but she couldn’t tell him the truth and risk losing him. ‘You haven’t eaten ...
Rhiannon swallowed hard. In other circumstances this might have been her home and her baby, with Bull coming home to her at the end of the working day. ‘Aye, I’ve got time off at last. Mrs Buchan is good to me but she sometimes forgets I need a couple of hours to myself.’ ‘Well, now you’re here s...