Book description
It is the late 1850s and a tired woman holding a baby walks from Hull
to one of the big houses in Anlaby, the home of the wealthy Rayners.
She knocks at the door, and shoves the baby at young James Rayner. It
is a Rayner child, the father was 'young Mr Rayner', and the mother is
dead. Then she vanishes. The respectable shipping family of Hull are
shattered. They all assume it is James's, not Gilbert's who is on the
verge of an excellent marriage. No one wants to take responsibility
for the baby and it is about to be put into a dreadful Dickensian type
orphanage when Sammi, James's girl cousin, decides to take the baby
back to her parents' home on the Holderness coast. This signals the
beginning of a family furore. James is banished to London and disaster
begins to beset the three branches of the Rayners, all descended from
the couple in The Hungry Tide.
A huge, many-faceted story of the three related families and the
triumphs and tragedies of their lives as the whaling industry of Hull
begins to decline, and the farmlands and homes continue to slip into
the sea.
Valerie Wood was born in Yorkshire, where she still lives. Her
first novel, The Hungry Tide, was the first winner of the Catherine
Cookson Prize for Fiction. She is the author of twelve novels, all of
which are available in Corgi paperback.
Find out more about Valerie Wood's novels by visiting her website on
www. valeriewood. co. uk
