A Mother’s Sorrow

Margaret Dickinson

THREE young women, two families united and a bond that can’t be broken... enjoy meeting a group of women thrown together by adversity as they find hope, comfort and strength in a dramatic saga from much-loved author Margaret Dickinson.

Dickinson (pictured below) – a writer who had her first novel published at the age of 25 and has since gone on to pen a raft of bestselling sagas – is on fine form as she brings us a gritty and heart-rending tale of survival set in the years before and during the First World War.

In Sheffield in 1892, Patrick Halliday is a controlling character and he rules his family with a rod of iron. He’s hard on both his long-suffering wife Edith and his elder daughter, Flora, but he spoils his youngest, Mary Ellen, because she reminds him of his beloved mother.

When Mary Ellen, aged just seventeen, finds that she is pregnant, Patrick throws her out of the family home and Flora feels compelled to go with her even though it means leaving behind her young man, Bert. And after wandering the Derbyshire countryside for miles, the sisters find shelter on a farm, working for their keep.

When Flora has to return to her job as a buffer girl in Sheffield’s cutlery trade, she is reunited with her friend, Evelyn Bonsor. As both young women find love and fall pregnant, the Halliday and Bonsor families are united, despite the many trials that cross their paths. And then the Great War breaks out and through hardship and tragedy, these two families must stick together to weather the storm. 

Dickinson is a born storyteller who knows how to immerse her readers in the past and a forgotten way of life, and in her 31st saga, she brings us a torrid tale filled with romance, heartache and page-turning drama. Written with saga queen Dickinson’s signature warmth and insight, A Mother’s Sorrow delivers the kind of rich period detail that brings the past and its people to vibrant life... and is a delight for all saga fans!

(Pan, paperback, £8.99)