Catherine Cookson

From the moment Bill Bailey arrived to take up residence at Fiona Nelson’s home in the Tyneside town of Fellburn, he made his presence felt in no uncertain terms. He might be outwardly ordinary enough, but he appeared to possess some extraordinary qualities, which proved to have a great and lasting effect on the future lives of Fiona and her young family.  Book 1 of series.

For Bill Bailey, now a fully-fledged Tyneside building contractor, life is good. But it is vital that Bill land the contract of a major development scheme. Competition is fierce, and when his men come under attack, Bill is sure that someone is out to spoil their chances for the job.  Book 2 of series.

Bill and Fiona Bailey are eagerly awaiting the arrival of their first child. Book 3 of series.

Maisie doesn't understand why her mother can't love her, but she knows that her life is deeply unhappy. When her stepfather George, leaves, Maisie has no protector, until she begins to escape into her own imagination. She first meets Hamilton as a lonely seven year old, but he has to remain a secret, for what would people think if she reveals her only friend is an imaginary horse?  Book 1 of series.

Freed at last from a disastrous marriage, Maisie had become a bestselling author with her first book - about Hamilton, the remarkable horse who existed only in her imagination, and was her guide, philosopher and friend.  Book 2 of series.

Catherine Cookson's well-loved novels Hamilton and Goodbye Hamilton tell the story of Maisie, who invented an imaginary horse to keep her company through the long years of an unhappy marriage, and before she became a bestselling author. In this engaging sequel, Hamilton has vanished from Maisie's life and two human companions take his place. In the days of mourning that follow the death of her beloved second husband Nardy, Maisie takes comfort and joy in the company of the cheerful, bright-eyed little cockney boy called Harold.  Book 3 of series.

Now, a year later, she decides to adopt him, and begins to find happiness once more and rarely needs to escape from reality into her imagination. She is even beginning to hope that true love could strike twice. But life is never simple and an unexpected friendship with a curious man could leave Maisie in grave danger...

Mallen of High Banks Hall had many sons, most of them out of wedlock. But to all of them, he passed on his mark – a distinctive flash of white hair running to the left temple known as the Mallen Streak. In 1851, Thomas Mallen, heir of High Banks Hall, found himself a ruined man and was forced amid scandal and disgrace to sell the hall. Then the Radlet brothers of Wilbur Farm arrived, one of whom bore the unmistakable Mallen Streak... Book 1 of series.

Even as a child Barbara was beautiful, but as her beauty grew, so did the affliction which shadowed it - she was becoming more and more deaf. Yet living in her silent world, she was protected from the knowledge which might otherwise have destroyed her - the secret of her own origins. Book 2 of series.

Each generation of the Mallen family has been cursed with a dramatic white streak in their jet-black hair. When Barbara's 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... Book 3 of the trilogy.

"Me da’s a grand man!” Mary Ann Shaughnessy has spoken; question her who dare. For although Mary Ann may look quite an ordinary small girl from a dockland tenement, she is in fact a one-man army, armoured with faith and possessed of formidable qualities.  Book 1 of series.

Mary Ann hopes for great results from her father in his new job.  Book 2 of series.

Mary Ann is being sent to a Convent school for the education which will help her escape from poverty.  Book 3 of series.

As Mary Ann began to learn about the feelings of adults, so could she see that the more they loved someone, the more they could hurt and be hurt. And it wasn’t just grown-ups who felt this way either... 

Seventeen year old Mary Ann has to grow up quickly as her first love, Corny Boyle, leaves for America.  Book 5 of series.

Corny is back from America and Mary Ann's dreams come true as they plan to get married.  Book 6 of series.

Life continues for Mary Ann and Corny. They are now the proud parents of twins, Rose Mary and David, who are inseparable and the apple of their mother’s eye. But are they really angels?  Book 7 of series.

As her children grow a new love enters Mary Ann's life.  Book 8 of series.

Coming up sixteen, Tilly Trotter is different from the other girls in her village. Tall for her age and coltish, she is not afraid of taking on "man's work" to help out the grandparents who raised her in a cottage at the edge of the Sop with Estate, only a few miles from the bustling Tyneside towns of County Durham. Testing times lay ahead for Tilly, often hard to endure and even bringing her the undeserved taint of being suspected of witchcraft. Tilly, with her unusual beauty, envied by the local women and lusted after by the men, only loves one man, farmer Simon Bentwood. She is heartbroken to discover he is betrothed to another. A spurned suitor takes a terrible revenge, and a betrayal forces her into the cruel drudgery of the local mine and puts her life in danger. But Tilly refuses to let her spirit be broken, determined that all this will only serve to make her stronger, and she grows to become a young woman of innate courage and fortitude. Set at the beginning of the Victorian era, this is a compelling story that follows the shaping of a young woman's life and destiny.  Book 1 of series.

Tilly Trotter has devotedly served Mark Sopwith at Highfield Manor and is his wife in all but name. But when Mark dies Tilly is left pregnant with his illegitimate child. A new love seems to offer an escape and so she follows her heart to America, sure that this will be the beginning of a better life. But new perils await Tilly across the ocean.... Book 2 of series.

The young widow returns from the United States to take charge of Highfield Manor, where once she worked as a nursemaid. She finds that life still has plenty in store for her.  Book 3 of series.

Proud, canny and ambitious, Hannah Massey is a born ruler. Her kingdom may be only a working-class household in County Durham, but within its walls her iron will governs a predominantly male family and her word is unchallengeable law. Now, in late middle age, her ambition is yet to be satisfied. She wants to see her brood living in the house where she was in service as a young girl.

Her name was Hannah Boyle, to the people of the village she would always be "The Girl". As the waif grew to beautiful womanhood, she became an object of desire to the local young men, including her half-brother.But it was the devil-may-care horse-dealer Ned Ridley, who taught her the meaning of love and passion.

When she asked Christopher Taggart to marry her, Maggie's two main desires in life were a child she could love and one of those big houses on Brampton Hill. She meant to have them all, despite the scorn of some folk, who thought they knew what she deserved better than she did herself!

Grace Rouse, a normal and beautiful young woman, is forced to recognise that her marriage is a sham after two years as the wife of a country parson. She turns from the husband she has tried in vain to love to the comfort and release offered by another man.

As the daughter of a mining family, Katie Mulholland is forced to find work as a scullery maid in the house of the Rosiers. But the beautiful young girl soon captures the eye of her employer’s evil son, who rapes her and leaves her pregnant. But Katie’s fate changes course when one man offers her the opportunity to make her own fortune, and to discover real love . . .

Emma Molinero is the orphan daughter of an itinerant carnival performer and skilled at performing with the whips. She is a figure of mystery and fascination to the villagers among whom she lives.

Roddy Greenbank was brought by his father to the remote Northumberland community of Langley in the autumn of 1807. However, when his father meets a violent death Roddy is adopted and raised by old Kate Makepeace. Roddy befriends Hal Roystan and Mary Ellen Lee, and these three find their lives lastingly intertwined by the inexorable demands of a strange and somewhat cruel destiny.

From the moment of Leo's arrival strange things begin to happen in Battenbun. An eel that's never been known to visit before appears in a pond outside the village. The men slope off to see this Slinky Jane - or so they say - while the women decide how best to deal with the other slippery customers …

Nancy Ann Hazel, young and high-spirited was the daughter of a country parson. He was a good man, but his Sunday sermon could seem long indeed when beyond the church doors the autumn sunshine beckoned her into the fields. Two elder brothers had taught her independence and courage - both of which she was going to need ...

When fifteen-year-old Cissie Brodie loses her parents to cholera, she is forced out of the family cottage and left to raise her nine siblings alone. Although desperately poor, Cissie determines to build a new home for the Brodies. It is only a rough stone shelter, but to Cissie and her family it is enough to keep them from the workhouse. But can love, when it arrives, teach Cissie not to fear the world beyond the dwelling place?

Every once in a while, circumstance traps a group of people in a pattern of tragedy and violence from which they struggle vainly to fight free. Thus it was with the Master of Cock Shield Farm, Angus McBain, a man too easily tempted to sin, and those in and around his household.

Young Freddie Musgrove was never more agile than when navigating his sculler across the waters of the Tyne. The shillings he picked up running messages and smuggled goods, helped to feed his family amidst the endless battle for survival in 1843. But after he witnesses a scene of unremitting horror at The Towers, his silence is bought, and years later, when the horror reoccurs, Freddie must fight to remain uninvolved.

Christmas 1913 and Agnes Conway, 22 and daughter of a tobacconist, has to keep from her father the secret of her relationship with Charles Farrier, son of a local landowner, who outrages his wealthy family by proposing marriage. His brother, Reginald, also makes no secret of his admiration for Agnes.

The heart-warming story of a young girl abandoned by her mother, who finds a home and a new life in Victorian England.

Bridget inherited her father's business at the age of nineteen, and by the time she was twenty-three in 1880, she was running them as confidently as any man. So a pattern began to form that would shape the lives of generations to come, yet the path destiny required her to follow was not an easy one.

It had never been the best of marriages, yet in 1960, Winifred and Daniel Coulson still presented an acceptable family facade to the outside world. But there was something potentially explosive just below the surface of life at Wearcill House. It came in an unforeseeable form, plunging the Coulsons into an excoriating series of crises out of which would emerge both good and evil.