Hiring Fair

by Jessica Stirling

Published 1 August 1976

In Edinburgh, Drew Stalker studies law, determined never to return to the grinding poverty of his childhood. Mirrin, the most restless and vital of them all, takes to the road and begins her journey, from tinker's camp to hiring fair, to a glittering future on the music-hall stage. And the Stalkers who remain in Blacklaw join a violent and bloody riot when the mine-owner Houston Lamont pushes them, at last, too far.
The Stalker Trilogy:
'Family ties, family strengths and weaknesses, ambition, greed loyalty and love . . . the story is compelling.' Daily Telegraph
'I would strongly recommend it to anyone with a taste for family sagas.' Scotsman


The Dark Pasture

by Jessica Stirling

Published 8 September 1978

Seventeen years have passed and the Lanarkshire mining village of Blacklaw has weathered both depression and the driving ambition of its coalmaster. But at last, falling wages have driven the miners to desperate rebellion...
In Edinburgh, Drew Stalker has become Scotland's most eminent young advocate, with the highest honours within his grasp. Only scandal can bring him down - and scandal in the form of his bastard son is about to re-enter his life. His sister Mirrin faces a different threat to her hard-won respectability. As Tom Armstrong's eyesight fails and her farm's future become uncertain, Mirrin must draw on all her courage to survive.
The Stalker Trilogy:
'Family ties, family strengths and weaknesses, ambition, greed loyalty and love . . . the story is compelling.' Daily Telegraph
'I would strongly recommend it to anyone with a taste for family sagas.' Scotsman


Spoiled Earth

by Jessica Stirling

Published 9 September 1977

The first novel by the author who has been called Scotland's answer to Catherine Cookson.
The Lanarkshire colliery village of Blacklaw is a harsh and unforgiving place, but it is home to the ambitious, hard-working Stalker family. Until the morning in March 1875, when a mining disaster takes a hundred lives and changes their life forever.
The underground explosions kills their menfolk, but not their ambitions, their pride or their love for one another. Drew Stalker is the young man on whom their hopes rest. But it is on his sisters Kate and Mirren that the burden of saving their family will fall.
A besteller since it was first published, this story continues in The Hiring Fair and concludes in The Dark Pasture.