The Slow Awakening

In the middle of the last century the prospects for an orphan or an unwanted child could be grim indeed. Such a child was Kirsten MacGregor, for-her parents had died suddenly of a fever while travelling in Northumberland, and there were no relatives or friends to claim her. She fell, therefore, into the hands of Ma Bradley, a baby farmer, who in time used her to tend the younger boys and girls who were the mainstay of a profitable and sinister trade. In this service she grew to womanhood, her good looks marred by a cast in one eye. Though this was so slight as to be noticeable only in times of tension or fear, it was to force upon Kirsten a still meaner fate; for the superstitious fishermen of the area regarded it as a cause of bad luck, and in time their prejudices reached so high a pitch that she had to be got rid of. She was made over to Hop Fuller, a travelling tinker and a hard, even vicious master who proceeded to make her pregnant. But then a great storm and flood changed everything. Kirsten was rescued from the raging waters to bear her child in the stables of a nearby mansion and there to find herself in a dangerously passionate relationship with its owners, the wealthy Knutsson family. How Kirsten and her son survived the intrigues, jealousies and hatreds which threatened to tear the Knutssons apart and how they ultimately, after a "slow awakening," found warmth, security and love complete the substance of this enticing and masterful novel.

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 grammer- master. At the age of forty she began writing about the lives of the working-class people with whom she had grown up, using the place of her birth as the background to many of her novels.

Although 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 soon began to spread throughout the world. Her novels have been translated into more than a dozen languages and more than 50,000,000 copies of her books have been sold in Corgi alone. Fifteen of her novels have been made into successful television dramas, and more are planned.

Catherine Cookson's 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.