Jessica's Girl: Everyone has secrets...

Description

Despite a deathbed warning from her beloved mother, Phoebe Mulligan has no choice but to throw herself on the mercy of her uncle, Edward. Wrenched from all she holds dear, the tragic young girl is delivered to Blackburn town, where she must live in a household terrorised by the cold, forbidding presence of her mother's brother. Phoebe cannot understand why she is treated so harshly by Edward Dickens. She is not to know the guilty secret that lies in his past, a secret that casts a sinister shadow over his feelings for his lovely niece . . .

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 - The Sunday Times Hailed quite rightly as a gifted writer in the tradition of Catherine Cookson - Manchester Evening News