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• Saturday, September 13th, 2008

Catherine Cookson was born in Tyne Dock, Newcastle England in 1906 as Kate McMullen (Catherine Ann Davies), an illegitimate child who believed that her alcoholic mother was her sister. She was raised by her grandmother Rose McMullen and her step-grandfather John McMullen. She left school at the young age of thirteen and worked in a laundry. She did not marry until she was thirty four years old, in 1940, to Tom Cookson, a teacher at Hastings Grammar School.

Catherine Cookson wrote novels as a remedy for her depression, after having several miscarriages due to a rare vascular disease. Her bibliography is quite extensive: she wrote about a hundred books, selling more than 123 million copies. Sometimes she wrote under the pseudonyms Catherine Marchant or Katie McMullen. Her novels have been made into films, radio and stage plays.

Catherine Cookson was awarded an honorary degree from the University of Newcastle. She received the Freedom of the Borough of South Tyneside. The Variety Club of Great Britain
named her Writer of the Year. She was also awarded an Order of the British Empire in 1985 and was elevated to a Dame Commander of the order of the British empire in 1993. She died at the age of ninety one in 1997.

The Lady On My Left was published in 1997. It’s a story set in a small village called Sealock. The main character in the novel is Alison Read, an orphan who falls in love with her guardian, Paul
Aylmer, an antique dealer who concealed a secret for many years, which when discovered by Alison transforms her life and leads the plot to a dramatic happy ending. It’s a story divided between love, jealousy and mystery. An easy-to-read novel without any character depth nor any complicated intrigue. A wide public read.

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Category: Book Reviews
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2 Responses

  1. 1
    paige 

    i realy liked this story because any way i like Catherine Cookson’s books so does my grandma. i liked the title of the book and i also liked the illerstrations on the front cover and in side too. my little brother askes me to read the book to him but he tells me to stop some times because he tells me what he thinks might happen next so i say well lets see then shall we.

  2. 2
    skyla-mae 

    i really like the name catherine cookson. she writes really good books and also is my best story writer. thanks alott for writing these books i have a whole collection of the books that catherine cookson hs wrote. i like the writting in the books and the book that she wrote about the spys and the dogs that is my favorite book she wrote so well done!!!!!!! by skyla mae evans

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