WASN’T it you who used to work behind the bar at the Frog and Lettuce?” Susan Tallboys looked up. She’d been fastening the buttons of her overcoat, suppressing her dislike of its worn fabric and its m

Isabella was in need of a husband – and her mother had one in her sights

serial part 1

THE toll of church bells was stifled by the winds. Sleet clawed my face as I pushed through the flurry. The orangery’s windows had shattered. Whichever way I turned, rattling, shaking trees bore down.

I WOKE up after a vivid dream of Eleanor. I’d had quite a few recently. Eleanor was my half-sister. She was older than me – the daughter of Dad’s first wife, Dorrie. My mum only found out he had a fir

WOULD you look at the man!” Maggie said. She wasn’t much to look at herself, being as black as sin from the coal dust. She’d just finished a shift at the colliery screens, picking lumps of coal out of