Set in the beautiful Lancashire moorside town of Skirlaugh, The Judge's Daughter is the stirring story of two very different families whose lives have become inextricably tangled. Agnes Makepeace has always been courageous and strong-minded and on the surface, she couldn’t be more unlike the chil...
At first I found it difficult to get into the book (possibly due to this not being my usual genre, and/or it was based at a time where there were major social changes going on). Once settled I couldn't put it down. Great characters...the privileged, poor, weird, wonderful and creepy all rolled in...
Annie Byrne was born during one of the worst winters Lancashire ever remembered. When the doctor finally got through the nine-foot drifts of snow, mother and daughter were in a pretty bad way, but both the new-born Annie and her exhausted mother - a spinner in the cotton mill - were fighters, tou...
The Bells of Scotland RoadByRuth HamiltonThe Bells of Scotland Road is talented novelist, Ruth Hamilton’s first novel based in Liverpool. She deserves congratulations for re-creating the poverty, squalor and cheerful vibrancy of Scotland Road in the years between 1930 and the Second World War, wh...
When Bernard Walsh moved his family from Bolton to Liverpool he did not expect the past to pursue him. But then Theresa Nolan, consumptive, angry and bent on revenge, arrived in the city and settled within three miles of Bernard's new home. While Theresa wrought havoc from the Mersey to the ...
This is a saga spanning 40 years of life in the Lancashire cotton mills. It tells of the lives and loves of two families from different backgrounds. The unhappy Swainbanks, cushioned by wealth but tortured by emotional conflict come to need the Maguires, especially Ma Maguire, more and more.
But he wasn’t. And he did notice things. The wife was in overdrive, Harrie was more worried than ever, while his son stayed out of the way as usual. Even Eileen Eckersley was in a state astutely described by Mother as ‘worse than Russia’. Mother was herself, but that was typical as she took every...
The local children were quieter than my contemporaries in town – even the St Mary’s girls had been rumbustious when compared to the simple souls who inhabited the village of Barr Bridge. At least, that was the impression I got early on in my career as a Barr Bridgeite. But country folk were deep,...
The front ‘parlour’ windows of numbers 1 to 4 inclusive enjoyed an uninterrupted view of Paradise Mill, while the backs of these dwellings overlooked the Paradise Recreation Ground. Those lucky enough to have a cottage in the tiny lane had rear gardens too, long and narrow strips of land whose ma...
Now in her seventies, she was probably nearer than most to the grim reaper, yet few listened to her recitals. These litanies were endless; complaints about doctors and their inadequacies, moans about the side-effects of the twenty-odd tablets she was forced to take each day ‘just to stay alive’, ...
It was 1930, and I was almost ten years of age, a skinny kid with too much hair and very little flesh on my bones. Mom used to say I looked like nobody owned me, though Dad always told her I would fill out in a few years. I still hear his wicked laugh from all the times he chased me with a wooden...
He was too old, too daft, and he returned quickly to the old religion, which was pale ale and darts. He’d served in the last war, he had a good wife who needed a husband in one piece, and two daughters who adored their dad. Drunkenness didn’t suit him, and he intended to live life in a safer mode...
The sense of loss remained, as Emily had been loved and appreciated by all who had known her. That such a quiet, tender person could leave so huge a fissure in the geology of their planet was a lesson; she had been strong and powerful behind that serene facade. Emily had d...
‘It’s great. Unusual, but great. It didn’t look right in the middle of the living room or standing in our bedroom, so I stuck it in the kitchen next to the sink.’ ‘Right. I believe you’ll find that’s probably the best place for it, all things considered. It’s where normal people keep their washin...
As soon as everyone had been given the all-clear, three adults and four children left the hospital with Andy. Outside, he summoned a taxi to carry the Bramwells to Laura’s house. Since the shop and living accommodation had been assessed as probably unsafe, the Bramwells had to stay at the Carsons...
He had delivered it only this morning, had handed it in to young Beth at the front door. A slim volume of some two hundred pages, it was entitled The View From Up Here, with a plain cover in white, black and gold. Well, there was little else to do. Beth had not returned from tennis, while Margare...