Hannah Massey Author:Catherine Cookson Proud and canny, ignorant and intensely ambitious, Hannah Massey is a born ruler. Her kingdom may be only a working-class household in County Durham, but within its walls her iron will governs a predominantly male family and her word is unchallengeable law. Now, in late middle age, her ambition is still not satisfied. She wants to see her bro... more »od living in the house where she was in service as a young girl. The apple of Hannah's eye is her pretty younger daughter, Rosie, who has just returned home after a spell in London. Rosie had just gone south, so Hannah thought, to escape the passionate pursuit of a young man she had known for most of her life. Her return is shrouded in mystery and evasions, and when the truth does come out, Hannah's world is torn apart. Hannah Massey is an early work by Catherine Cookson, who has achieved a memorable and fascinating character study -- a woman who is truly formidable and yet who arouses the reader's deepest compassion.« less