Part of Series
Her expensive convent education hadn't changed Mary Ann Shaughnessy one little bit. Sure, she could come over all refined when she had to, but who'd want to talk ever so nice on a farm? But in other respects she was growing up fast. As Mary Ann began to learn about the feelings of adults, so could she see that the more they loved someone, the more they could hurt and be hurt. And it wasn't just grown-ups who felt this way either. With something of a start, she realised that - whenever she caught sight of Corny Boyle - she could recognise those same feeling swelling up inside herself.
Author
Catherine Cookson was born in Tyne Dock, the illegitimate daughter of a poverty-stricken woman, Kate, who Catherine believed was her older sister. Catherine began work in service but eventually moved south to Hastings, where she met and married Tom Cookson, a local grammar-school master. Although she was originally acclaimed as a regional writer - her novel The Round Tower won the Winifred Holtby Award for the best regional novel of 1968 - her readership quickly spread throughout the world, and her many best-selling novels established her as one of the most popular contemporary woman novelist. She received an OBE in 1985, was created a Dame of the British Empire in 1993, and was appointed an Honorary Fellow of St Hilda's College, Oxford, in 1997. For many years she lived near Newcastle upon Tyne.
