Nineteen, twenty, my plate’s empty

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.

THE wedding is a small affair. Issac had wanted something bigger, but Clara still felt a fraud, despite her brother Joseph’s assurances that Issac really loved her. She regularly pinches herself to se

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

WHAT was the man thinking of when he did his shopping? Jessie thought. Two huge, brown paper parcels spilled food on to the kitchen table. Enough to feed a family for a fortnight at least. Slices of t

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

serial part 1