Colour Blind

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Heading to the south coast, she worked in the laundry of a workhouse, before spending the next 46 years of her life in Hastings. Catherine Cookson was an English author. Before her death in 1998, she was the United Kingdom’s most widely read novelist, boasting sales in the hundreds of millions. Despite her fame and fortune, she maintained a relatively low profile, even in the world of celebrity writers. A compelling read and good exploration of implied and overt racial prejudice; the difficulties of an inter-racial relationship;its impact on the McQueen Family and how the child of this inter-racial marriage raised in this environment survived and found her own peace and love within this existence. Catherine was the illegitimate child of Kate Fawcett, an alcoholic. She was raised by her grandparents and, as a child, she thought Kate, her mother, was her sister. Her father was later revealed (by a biographer) to be Alexander Davies, a bigamist and gambler from Lanarkshire. Even at the beginning of her illustrious career, she had the power to captivate her audiences, delivering passion and compelling drama. While it is true that Catherine Cookson writes the most spectacular romances, there is so much more in this novel than just romance. In fact, a considerable portion of this book is dedicated to the interactions between the different families and neighbors.

Catherine Cookson passed away just nine days short of her 92nd birthday at her home on June 11, 1998. A lot of the work Catherine Cookson produced manifested the uncomfortable research she had to undertake to write her stories, this including going down a mine to study the setting of one of her stories. Born in Birmingham, he was the second youngest of six children of Amos Armatrading, a carpenter, who had emigrated in the 50s from St Kitts with his wife, Beryl (nee Benjamin), from Antigua, a cousin of the Lib Dem peer and entertainer Floella Benjamin, first going to Cornwall, before settling in Birmingham.Upon her moving to Newcastle Angus finds her living in dire housing. He decides to help her situation by marring Van. Set in mid-1950's England, this story tells of the wealthy, socially upwardly-progressive Ratcliffe family. Their youngest daughter, seventeen year old Vanessa, feels alienated from her selfish parents, who are more interested in their eldest daughter's upcoming marriage into one of their town's old families. An old friend of the family, who is himself trapped in a loveless marriage, makes love to Vanessa one night, and she becomes pregnant, but won't reveal who the father is. Her parents are sure it is an employee of the Ratcliffe's, Angus Cotton, who hotly denies this and quits his job to go and start his own business. ... Anyone that thinks of this novel as little more than fluffy romance will be surprised by the depth they discover. Britain’s best selling author was made a Dame in the 1993 New Year Honours List. She was already an OBE.

It took Catherine a decade to recover from the mental breakdown she suffered following her miscarriages. Catherine Cookson was one of my mom's favorite authors, and so I decided to read this book in her memory. I've come to realize I never paid attention to the genres she liked: historical romance, family relationships, Danielle Steel, etc. Aside from children's classics like Little Women and A Little Princess, there are probably less than 5 titles we've shared. Good book by this great author - it is such a shame she died and we can no longer look forward to any more books. There's also a bit of an antoginist in the form of her uncle, who wasn't killed by her father, but horribly disfigured. He causes trouble for her but in the end is beaten. However the scenes at the end of the book are so vague and POV that there isn't any satisfaction in seeing him finally dealt with.Fate, however, intervenes. John is accused to fathering the child of a local girl, with Mary’s parents immediately refusing her to see him again. The couple learns of the widening chasm that exists between them as they wonder whether they can cross the gulf separating their worlds. Description: Vanessa Ratcliffe was just sixteen - and even though she had a convent education she had a provocative manner that drew envious eyes in her direction. She lived in one of the big houses on Brampton Hill, for the Ratcliffes, a powerful and avaricious family, were considered 'big' folk in the town. The mother is then left to be sort of romanced by her adopted brother - but this isn't expanded on in any form and they neither get married nor live together.