Kate Hannigan / The Long Corridor

Description

Two wonderful novels in one volume. KATE HANNIGAN;Dr Rodney Prince had never seen a girl who looked more out o place in the grime and squalor of the Fifteen Streets than did Kate Hannigan. He knew she had suffered at the hands of men- Tim Hannigan, her 'father' was a vicious bully; John Herrington, a smooth-talking seducer, had left her with his child.;;But Rodney Prince's desire for a family had been frozen out by a wife who'd wanted Harley Street, not a Tyneside slum. By contrast, Kate glowed with a warmth that far outshone the hard, brittle beauty of Stella, and exposed the emptiness in his heart.;;And so, between Rodney Prince, a wealthy man locked in an unhappy marriage, and Kate Hannigan, a bastard child of the slums, grew a love that opposed all the concepts of an Edwardian society...;;THE LONG CORRIDOR;To outsiders, Dr Paul Higgin's life appeared to be happy and contented. Everyone had a good word for him, and his home life appeared to be ideal. At thirty-six, 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 fa ade that Paul and Bett Higgins presented to the world concealed a welter of hate that had grown worse with the passing years. Between them stood the barrier of the past - of secrets that, were they known, could affect everyone around them. 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...

Catherine Cookson was born in Tyne Dock, the illegitimate daughter of a poverty-stricken woman, Kate, whom she believed to be her older sister. She 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 of contemporary women novelists. After receiving an OBE in 1985, Catherine Cookson was created a Dame of the British Empire in 1993. She was appointed an Honorary Fellow of St Hilda's College, Oxford, in 1997. For many years she lived near Newcastle upon Tyne. She died shortly before her ninety-second birthday, in June 1998.