From bestselling author Catherine Cookson comes a compelling riches-to-rags story featuring secrets, scandal, and emotional drama set in Victorian England. Annabella Lagrange had the kind of childhood that most can only dream about. The only child of an aristocratic couple, raised on their magnificent estate in the English countryside, she was loved by her parents and coddled by servants who acquiesced to her every whim. She was allowed to do anything she wanted, except, of course, to stray too far from her wing of the house. But her seclusion didn't concern her too much, because when she grew up, she planned to marry her handsome cousin Stephen and live happily ever after. However, on the morning of her tenth birthday, Annabella ventured farther than she'd ever gone before. Overcome with curiosity, she opened a forbidden door that led into her father's private quarters, and what she found there showed her with shocking clarity that her father was not the man she thought he was. And though she couldn't know it at the time, the events of that day set in motion the uncovering of a secret that had been kept for many years. So begins the remarkable story of Annabella Lagrange, a sensitive, beautiful young woman who was raised as a lady. But when she turns eighteen, she learns the surprising circumstances of her birth, and her entire world quietly crashes around her. Suddenly she's forced from the genteel surroundings of her youth into the rough, lower-class society of Victorian England, where only her quick wit and determination can save her from starvation. Catherine Cookson was one of the world's most beloved writers, and in The Glass Virgin her powers are at their height. Rarely has a heroine been portrayed more sensitively or a situation more compellingly. Filled with passion and drama, The Glass Virgin is a rare treat for lovers of romantic fiction.

Tilly Trotter isn't like the other girls in the villages of County Durham. Tall and coltish, she's not afraid of taking on man's work to help out the grandparents who raised her. There's an unusual beauty in her too, a beauty that's envied by the local women and lusted after by the men.

A novel from the author of PARSON'S DAUGHTER, HAROLD, DINNER OF HERBS, GOODBYE HAMILTON, BLACK VELVET GOWN, INVISIBLE CORD, WHIP, MOTH, CULTURED HANDMAIDEN, HAMILTON and BILL BAILEY.

Even the approach to Christmas fails to excite restless Agnes Conway, the twenty-two-year-old manager of the sweet and tobacconist shops owned by her feckless father. There are dark secrets in Arthur Conway's past, and these come tragically to light when Agnes's younger sister falls pregnant by one of the notorious Felton brothers. And Agnes herself has a secret, which she knows she must keep from her father: her relationship with Charles Farrier, son of a local landowner, who outrages his own wealthy, pious family by proposing marriage. However Charles is not the only man who could shape Agnes's furture, as his brother Reginald makes no secret of his admiration for her. But she could not have foreseen how significant a part he is to play in her destiny... The Wingless Bird is an absorbing story of love and the harsh realities of Britain's class system.

Catherine Cookson author of The Round Tower won the Winifred Holtby Award, leading to her readership quickly spread worldwide, with her many bestselling novels establishing her as one of the most popular contemporary authors. Orphaned at a tender age, Millie Forester is adopted by "Raggie Aggie" Winkowski, and she suffers misfortune and misplaced love as she grows to adulthood side by side with Aggie's son, Ben, whose love for Millie increases over the years.

Can love overcome prejudice? Even in the worst days of the recession, the McQueen family remain upbeat. This is what keeps them strong — when all else fails, you can always laugh. Like many of the residents of Fifteen Streets, they are as blunt as they are big-hearted. So imagine their shock when Bridget McQueen brings home her African husband. Colour Blind is an absorbing story of prejudice, racial tension and family feuding in the 1920s.

Thomas Mallen of High Banks Hall had many sons, most of them out of wedlock. But to all of them he passed on his mark - a distinctive flash of white hair running to the left temple, known as the Mallen Streak. It was said that those who bore the Streak seldom reached old age and that nothing good ever came of a Mallen. In 1851, Thomas Mallen found himself a ruined man, forced amid scandal and disgrace, to sell the Hall. With him went his two young wards and their indomitable governess. Then the Radlet brothers of Wilbur Farm arrived, one of whom bore the unmistakable Mallen Streak.

As a diversion from his job in his uncle's carpentry shop, newly arrived Robert Bradley began to explore the Durham countryside. It was on one of these walks that he met Millie, the ethereal girl-child whose odd ways and nocturnal wanderings had led her to be known locally as Thorman's Moth.

Catherine Cookson is known and loved for her vibrant earthy novels set in and around the North-East of England, past and present. Her autobiography makes plain how it is she knows her background and her characters so well. The Our Kate of the title is not Catherine Cookson, but her mother, around whom the autobiography revolves. Despite her faults, Kate emerges as a warm and loveable human figure. Our Kate is an honest statement about living with hardship and poverty, seen through the eyes of a highly sensitive child and woman, whose zest for life and unquenchable sense of humour won through to make Catherine Cookson the warm, engaging and human writer she is today.