The first winner of the Catherine Cookson Prize, this is a family saga set on the Yorkshire coast at the turn of the 18th century. For generations, a stubborn population of farmers and fishermen has struggled against the encroachments of the sea that is the background to their lives.[...]
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. The father was 'young Mr Rayner', and the mother is dead. Then she vanishes. The respectable [...]
Annie Swinburn is harbouring a terrible secret. She has killed a man. The man was evil in every possible way, but she knows that her only fate if she stays in the slums of Hull is a hanging. And so she runs.[...]
Can two friends find hope in hard times? Ruby and Grace have grown up in the poorest slums of Hull. Friends since early childhood, they have supported each other in bad times and good. But their families are bound together by more than friendship, and secrets from the past threaten to make their liv[...]