"His full name is Joseph Rooney Smith and he works for the corporation of one of the Tyneside towns as an 'M.P.'. This has nothing to do with the Houses of Parliament, but is short for 'Muck Pusher': Rooney is a dustman. A shy man, Rooney has one aim in life - a comfortable home, but with a difference - he did not want a wife. As a result, Rooney spends his time dodging women; his canniness becomes the envy of his mates and the despair of predatory widows and single women. Yet this resolute bachelor's way of thinking is changed in spite of himself, when he moves his treasured bits of furniture and meets Nellie. She seems shy too, but when she uncharacteristically 'breaks out', not only does she throw the gentle Rooney into utter confusion, she awakens in him feelings he never knew he possessed. Rooney, one of Catherine Cookson's most endearing characters, is an ordinary bloke with a dustbin on his shoulder, romance in his soul and Sir Galahad lurking just below skin level. The story of how Rooney finally pushes through to the surface is warm, amusing and thoroughly enjoyable."
"It was a wartime white wedding but it was not a love match. Annie Cooper married George McCabe for one reason only: she was expecting his child. But Annie was a girl of spirit and determined to make the marriage work. Annie applied herself to that task as she matured into a woman of character and resource. The family prospered even as it grew. She bore George four children, but it was the first who always held her heart in the hollow of his hand. From early childhood, Rance was a problem. There were traits in his character that were hard to excuse or even understand, but whatever trouble he got into, Annie would forgive him. Mother and son were bound together by an invisible cord; invisible but strong enough to become a noose for both of them."
"Prudence Dudley was a woman who appeared to have everything: an undeniably attractive woman who had already achieved considerable success as a novelist. Yet she remained at odds with life after her sad rejected childhood and a more recent deeply wounding emotional crisis. Nearing a breakdown, Prudence seeks support from her staunch and supportive Auntie Maggie, and flees to her rented cottage in the Lake District. They encounter the owner of the cottage, aggressive and overbearing David Bernard Michael McVeigh. In time, Pru comes to learn that his iron façade is not the whole man and that life had dealt him as raw a deal as ever it had her. Relentlessly, Pru finds herself drawn more and more into the affairs of a strange household. By helping those in her household, will Pru come closer to finding her happiness?"
"John Emmerson was a lonely man. He had a wife, a son, friends, but he was isolated from all the people and events around him by the tragedy of his past. Then he met Cissie, and for the first time his loneliness eased a little. Cissie was everything that his wife Ann was not. She was warm, compassionate and generous. And she was quick to sense the needs of a desolate unhappy man. But Cissie was also a young widow: poor, and with a young son to support. And John Emmerson was one of the town's leading solicitors - a man of importance whose every move was watched by the local dignitaries. . ."
"In the brooding north country hills, a man and a woman fought for the passion they felt for each other that the world branded a disgrace. . .Agnes Thorman - the proud but forlorn mistress of a once-grand estate, whose society forbade her the man who was her equal in all but name. . .Robert Bradley - a gifted craftsman, as visionary and challenging as the dawning new age. He had yet to seize his dream, which could destroy the woman he loved. . .And Milicent Thorman - the strange, wise girl-child fated to play a part in the lovers' unfolding destiny. . ."
"To outsiders, Dr Paul Higgins' life appeared to be happy and contented. Everyone had a good word for him and his home life appeared to be ideal. At 36, Bett Higgins could still pass for a much younger woman, not just in looks but in the way she loved the company of people half her age. A grand couple, some might say. But once the surgery was closed and the curtains drawn, the façade that Paul and Bett Higgins presented to the world concealed a welter of hate and ill-conceived bitterness that had grown worse with the passing years. Between them stood the barrier of the past - of secrets that each had long kept close. Unable to forgive each other, they led their separate lives - until Bett decided to allow her spite and resentment to culminate in revenge on the husband she did not love. . ."
"There were plenty around Fellburn who said Maggie Rowan was as plain as a pikestaff, a woman consumed with jealousy at her sister's good fortune in marrying well. But Maggie Rowan, with her dogged determination to succeed, had two raging ambitions beneath a cold and forbidding exterior: to become the mother of a child whom she could love and to escape from the life of the miner's cottage to one of the big houses on Brampton Hill. When she marries the easy-going Chris Taggart, her marriage is planned shrewdly and without sentiment. Like her, he is considered the 'odd man out' and, for that reason, the only one likely to have her and who unleashes her hidden desire to be loved."
"In the mid-1850s, life for an orphan was grim, as Kirsten MacGregor discovered when her parents died suddenly on a journey to Northumberland, leaving her penniless and alone in the hands of a cruel farmer. Somehow, Kirsten survived her terrible childhood - only to be sold, at the age of 14, to a travelling tinker - a vicious man who held her captive until the fateful day they were separated during a storm. Rescued from the flood by the Flynn family, she gave birth to a child as the waters raged about her. At the same time, Florence, mistress of the great house nearby, was told that her newborn son was dead. The two women entered into a secret bargain, an arrangement that was to change Kirsten's fortune and place her in the middle of a bitter feud between two families."
"Her name was Hannah Boyle, but to the people of the village she would always be 'The Girl' - Matthew Thornton's bastard. Savagely treated by Matthew's wife, Anne, she fled for protection to the devil-may-care horse-dealer, Ned Ridley, who had earlier befriended her. But, as the waif grew to beautiful womanhood, she became an object of desire to the local young men, and even to her half-brother. Against her wishes, she was married off, but Hannah kept on fighting for the man she wanted: Ned Ridley, who adored her and taught her the meaning of true love and passion. . ."
"Sep McGilby always said that Emily Kennedy had a happy face. And at 16, Emily had a lot to be glad about. She loved working as maid-of-all-work for the McGilbys, the only cloud on her horizon was her anxiety about her delicate younger sister, Lucy. But when Mrs McGilby dies, and Sep is killed in an accident soon after, Emily and Lucy must leave South Shields to look for work, which they find at Croft Dene House. The household of Croft Dene, where Lawrence Birch ruled as master, was a strange one, and as Emily became more deeply involved with the family's affairs, she grew rapidly to a young woman, needing all her strength of will and character to survive. And whatever else happened, she clung to a scrap of philosophy that carried her through the bitter struggles of her new life."
"Someone had once told Emma Molinero, the daughter of an itinerant carnival performer, that she was made for trouble. Her earliest memories were of life with a travelling show - part fair and part circus - that toured the shires at the dawn of the Victorian era. But at the age of seven she found herself an orphan who, in accordance with her Spanish father's dying wishes, must now leave the warm and friendly community to live with an unknown English grandmother far to the north in County Durham. With her she took the whips and knives used with such dexterity by her father for his act and for which she had an inherited skill: a strange legacy that would make her a figure of mysterious but commanding fascination to the villagers and ultimately play a significant part in shaping Emma's destiny."
"When Cissie Brody was 15, fever swept the English countryside, killing her parents and leaving her to care for her nine younger siblings. Rejecting the offers of town officials to care for the children in the workhouse, Cissie is determined to keep the family together and moves them to a cave-like dwelling place on the Fells. One afternoon as she is returning home, she is attacked by Isabelle Fischel and raped by her twin brother, Lord Clive Fischel, later bearing him a son. Cissie refuses to give up the child until her sister faces imprisonment for a childish misdemeanour. It is through love and friendship that Cissie learns not to fear the world beyond the dwelling place."
