Windsor Selection S.

6 total works

The House by Princes Park

by Maureen Lee

Published 16 May 2002

The story of one woman's remarkable life - hardship, heartbreak, and above all huge passion and inner resources. The product of an affair between a nurse and an injured American soldier during the Great War, Ruby O'Hagan's early life is in an orphanage. At sixteen she runs away with a farmworker, and two years later she is alone and homeless with her two daughters. Her friend, Mrs Hart, leaves her big friendly house for Ruby to look after and it is here that her life unfolds. Her children leave but return when tragedy befalls them. Through all this the enigmatic Matthew Flynn drifts in and out of Ruby's life. She ignores him until it is almost too late.

Queen of the Mersey

by Maureen Lee

Published 21 August 2003

It is Liverpool, 1939. The Second World War is about to start when pretty Laura Oliver meets Queenie Todd. Laura is twenty-one and happily married to dashing Roddy. Plain, inadequate Queenie is only fourteen and has been deserted by her goodtime mother. The two become friends, along with big-hearted Vera Monoghan across the street. When the air raids begin the older women trust Queenie sufficiently to put their small daughters, Hester and Mary, into her care and the three young people are evacuated to Caerdovey, a small town on the coast of Wales. At first it is a haven of peace and quiet. The girls have a wonderful time and then something happens, so terrifying that it will haunt them for the rest of their lives. This unputdownable story tells of great friendships and terrible betrayals. Maureen Lee has written a novel full of the warmth and perception we have come to expect from her.

Annie

by Maureen Lee

Published 18 May 1998

A sweeping Liverpool saga following the fortunes of one woman from her brith in 1942 to the 1990's. Interweaving the threads of tragedy and romance, humour and tears, family ties and family lies, Maureen Lee has fashioned a passionate novel that spans fifty years of one woman's life.

Dancing in the Dark

by Maureen Lee

Published 20 May 1999

A brilliantly compelling Liverpool saga following the lives of two women - three generations apart.

Millie Cameron is not at all pleased when she finds herself obliged to sort through the belongings of her aunt Flo, who has recently died. She hardly knew her aunt and besides, she has her own career to think about. But when she arrives at Flo's basement flat, Millie's interest is awakened.

As she sorts through her aunt's collection of photographs, letters and newspaper cuttings she finds herself embarking on a journey - a journey to a past which includes a lost lover and a secret child.

Picking through the tangled web of Flo's life, Millie makes the startling discovery that all the threads lead to herself...

The Girl from Barefoot House

by Maureen Lee

Published 18 May 2000

It is 1938, and little Josie Flynn is sitting at the top of the stairs outside her attic room in Liverpool. Despite the cold on the landing and the thinness of her nightie, she is completely happy. Her beautiful prostitute mother is nearby - and this for the present is all that matters. What Josie doesn't know is that her long and often lonely journey through life is just beginning. It is a journey that starts in heartbreak when she is sent to live with her miserable Aunt Ivy and over-friendly Uncle Vince; takes her to Barefoot House where she becomes the paid companion of the elderly, cantankerous woman who eventually becomes her friend; and seems to promise life-long happiness when she meets handsome, charismatic Jack Coltrane in New York. But life never turns out quite the way you want, and when tragedy strikes, Josie returns to Liverpool alone. As she renews old loves and former friendships, she embarks upon a career which is as unlikely as it is successful.

Laceys of Liverpool

by Maureen Lee

Published 1 May 2001

A compelling story of deep emotion and tangled family relationships that hide a dreadful secret. Pretty Alice Lacey couldn't be more different from her sister-in-law, bitter, ambitious Cora. Alice is married to John, Cora to his hapless younger brother, Billie. Both women give birth to sons on one chaotic night in 1940. But Cora's jealousy and resentment lead her to swap her puny baby for Alice's beautiful son. Alice, her marriage in tatters because the badly burned John rejects her, borrows money from Cora in order to purchase the lease of the tiny hairdresser where she works. Alice is talented; the business thrives and a chain of salons becomes Laceys of Liverpool. Relationships between the cousins Cormac and Maurice, their parents, Alice's three girls and their eventual husbands and children enrich this engrossing saga and give a unique picture of Liverpool in the last sixty years of the twentieth century.