Book description
Queenie Bedford fled her native Blackburn and the bitter knowledge that
she and Rick Marsden, the man she loved, could never marry. But in 1965
she returned north again to stand by her friend Sheila Thorogood,
imprisoned for running a brothel with her mother Maisie. Though Rick had
vowed to find her, Queenie took care that he should not know of her
whereabouts. The magnificent Edwardian house in Blackpool was sadly
neglected - but Queenie moved in with the ailing Maisie, and set about
transforming it into a sparklingly clean, highly respectable guesthouse.
Meanwhile, Queenie was to meet the frail and confused Hannah Jason,
locked away years ago for murder, and desperate for news of her
long-lost son. As Rick continued his dogged search for Queenie, she set
out to find Hannah's son. But both their enquiries threatened to unlock
the cage where crucial secrets had long been held captive. 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.'
