Book description
When Rosie's parents were involved in a train accident, her mother was
killed and her father left crippled, unable to earn a living and relying
on Rosie to keep the wolf from the door. With her mother gone and her
sweetheart Adam away in the army, Rosie is lonely. She eagerly awaits
the letters from him, but they never come. As she grows more
disillusioned, Adam's best friend Doug goes out of his way to be
charming and attentive. Alone and confused, Rosie blossoms under his
evil influence. Soon she is carrying Doug's baby and her father has
thrown her out of the house. Realising she has no choice, she agrees to
marry Doug. As if she isn't in enough trouble, Rosie's whole world falls
apart when a warm and wonderful letter arrives from Adam...telling her
he's on his way home. 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.'
