Book description
In 1975 Lucinda Marsh throws herself in front of a speeding train
leaving her twelve-year-old daughter Kitty alone, confused and abandoned
- save for a selfish aunt, a violent father and her childhood sweetheart
Harry Jenkins. When Kitty is sent to an orphanage after the death of her
father, she meets Georgie, a lively cockney girl who, through the
following difficult years, becomes her loyal friend. Convinced that her
feelings for Harry will ruin the brilliant future that lies ahead of
him, Kitty turns her back on his love. Together with Georgie, she
strives to find fulfilment in other places and other relationships, but
when fate throws her back together with Harry she begins to wonder if
true love can ever die... 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.'
