Feathers in the Fire - Couverture souple

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 bestselling 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.

Davie Armstrong watched as his master, Angus McBain, thrashed young Molly Geary for refusing to name the man who had dishonoured her. And yet, not an hour later, Davie saw the two of them alone in the malthouse, and Molly was acting like a whore on market day. In a whirl of disbelieving rage he overheard McBain's plan - to let him, Davie, take the blame and marry Molly, to give the child a name. And he was not alone in witnessing the scene, for with him was Angus' daughter Jane, Davie's staunch ally.

But it was the birth of McBain's true son Amos that unleashed the course of actions that resulted in viplence and tragedy. Born with no legs and emotionally crippled, Amos would wield power of frightening intensity and bring disaster to all at Cock Shield Farm . . .