The Wingless Bird

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0671666207 ISBN 13: 9780671666200

Publisher: Summit Books, 1991

Agnes Conway, the daughter of a middle-class shopkeeper, escapes the abusive tyranny of her father through marriage into the aristocracy, only to have her golden dreams tragically altered by the outbreak of World War I

From the Inside Flap:

Even the approach of Christmas, 1913, fails to excite the restless Agnes Conway, the twenty-two-year-old manager of her feckless father's adjoining sweet and tobacconist shops.  There are dark secrets in Arthur Conway's past, and these come tragically to light when Agnes's younger sister becomes pregnant by one of the notorious Felton brothers.  And Agnes herself has a secret, which she knows she must keep from her father:  an attachment to Charles Farrier, son of a local landowner, who outrages his own pious family by proposing marriage...

But Charles is not the only man who shapes Agnes's future, for his brother Reginald makes no secret of his admiration for her; although she could not have foreseen how significant a part he was to play in her destiny...

About the Author:

Catherine Cookson lived in Northumberland, England, the setting of many of her international bestsellers. Born in Tyne Dock, she was the illegitimate daughter of an impoverished woman, Kate, whom she was raised to believe was her older sister. She began to work in the civil service but eventually moved south to Hastings, where she met and married a local grammar school master.
Although she was originally acclaimed as a regional writer, in 1968 her novel The Round Tower won the Winifred Holtby Award, her readership quickly spread worldwide, and her many bestselling novels established her as one of the most popular contemporary authors. After receiving an OBE in 1985, Catherine Cookson was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1993. She died shortly before her ninety-second birthday, in June 1998, having completed 104 works.