Take this Woman: A moving and utterly compelling coming-of-age saga

Description

Blackburn, 1947. In the tiny front parlour fourteen-year-old Laura Blake watches her beloved father die. But not before he tells her she will make something of her life. Laura never forgets his words. Yet her path to success proves to be a rocky one. Forced to trundle a cart around the back streets, selling other folk's cast-offs to support her family, Laura learns enough to start work in her uncle's furniture shop. But then fate deals another cruel blow when Laura is brutally raped. Bearing the child of her attacker in secret, she vows to make the world pay for its injustice towards her. As she grows older her protective shell hardens even as her beauty blossoms, and her new toughness helps her forge a successful career in the antiques business. But it is in affairs of the heart that Laura stumbles...

Josephine Cox was born in a cotton-mill house in Blackburn, one of ten children. At the age of sixteen, Josephine met and married her husband Ken, and had two sons. When the boys started school, she decided to go to college and eventually gained a place at Cambridge University. She was unable to take this up as it would have meant living away from home, but she went into teaching - and started to write her first full-length novel. Her strong, gritty stories are taken from the tapestry of life.

Impossible to resist - Woman's Realm The fact that Josephine Cox brings so much freshness to the plot, and the characters, is an indication of her skills as a storyteller. Her fans will love this coming-of-age novel. So will the many devotees of Catherine Cookson, desperate for a replacement - Birmingham Post Driven and passionate - Sunday Times Hailed quite rightly as a gifted writer in the tradition of Catherine Cookson - Manchester Evening News