Seventeen-year-old Ruth Hardy works long hours at Grange Paper Works, with her younger sister Bea, and spends her free time caring for their ailing parents.She is the talk of Ryhope when she arrives there, aged seventeen, alone, seeking work and a home in the pit village.A life of poverty in a cramped pit cottage is all that seventeen-year-old Ruby Dinsdale has known.In 1915 three women start work at a toffee factory in the market town of Chester-le-Street, Durham.When a newborn baby girl is found abandoned with nothing but a scarlet ribbon tied to her basket.As the Great War rages, Jack's toffee factory in the market town of Chester-le-Street, Durham, is threatened with closure when sugar rations begin.
'Such a good writer. She's fantastic!' - Woman's Hour, BBC Radio 4.
My historical sagas star feisty females and are wonderfully dramatic, with a touch of humour. I also write cosy crimes set in Scarborough. These were shortlisted for Best New Crime Series with Richard Osman and Val McDermid in the Dead Good Readers Awards.
I’m a prize-winning short story writer. My short fiction has appeared in publications including The Express, Take a Break, My Weekly and The People's Friend. I am the author of weekly soap opera, Riverside, for The People's Friend magazine - the longest running women's magazine in the world.
A life-long fan of the soap opera Coronation Street, I run two Coronation Street fan websites. The Coronation Street Blog is praised by the Manchester Evening News as 'Excellent' and 'Essential Reading for Street Fans'.
