Book description
Unable to cope with raising his children alone, Robert Sullivan
abandons them to others, until he has a change of heart and decides to
go back for them. But on the way there, he is involved in a horrific
accident. Jack and Nancy are placed in the brutal regime of the Galloway
Children's Home, where Jack's devotion to his sister and fiery temper
land him in more trouble. The children find themselves at the mercy of
the corrupt Clive Ennington, who splits them up and sells Nancy off to
the highest bidder. Meanwhile Mary, Robert's only love, is forced to
seek a new life for herself. She decides to marry Paul Marshall, the
handsome owner of a seaside guesthouse but her chance of happiness is
threatened by his embittered aunt. As Robert recovers in hospital he is
determined to find and reunite his family. But when he realises the
terrible consequences of his actions, he begins to wonder if he will
ever see Mary and the children again. The story of Josephine Cox is as
extraordinary as anything in her novels. Born in a cotton-mill house in
Blackburn, she was one of ten children. Her parents, she says, brought
out the worst in each other, and life was full of tragedy and hardship -
but not without love and laughter. At the age of sixteen, Josephine met
and married 'a caring and wonderful man', and had two sons. When the
boys started school, she decided to go to college and eventually gained
a place at Cambridge University, though was unable to take this up as it
would have meant living away from home. However, she did go into
teaching, while at the same time helping to renovate the derelict
council house that was their home, coping with the problems caused by
her mother's unhappy home life - and writing her first full-length
novel. Not surprisingly, she then won the 'Superwoman of Great Britain'
Award, for which her family had secretly entered her, and this coincided
with the acceptance of her novel for publication. Josephine gave up
teaching in order to write full time. She says, 'I love writing, both
recreating scenes and characters from my past, together with new
storylines which mingle naturally with the old. I could never imagine a
single day without writing, and it's been that way since as far back as
I can remember.'
