In strictly chapel Pontypridd in 1938, tongues are quick to wag when Alma Moore, abandoned by her lover, is rushed to hospital with stomach pains. The doctor may call it appendicitis, but the scandal-mongers think they know better. And then Bethan John, who's too good for the rest of them since she married a doctor, comes back to her mining family's house with her new baby - but without her husband, or any word of explanation. Ostracised by most - even their own mothers - Alma and Bethan face a lonely struggle to survive. Then taciturn Russian Charlie, an outsider haunted by his own past, reaches out the hand of friendship to them both, and in so doing begins to thaw his own heart...
Author Biography
Catrin Collier is Wales' most prolific and well-known author of historical, romantic fictions. The daughter of a Prussian refugee mother and Welsh father, she grew up in Pontypridd. She has written 19 novels for Orion. Her first historical novel Hearts of Gold, was filmed as a mini-series by the BBC in 2003. She lives with her family on the Gower Peninsula, near Swansea. She also writes crime fiction under the pen name Katherine John.
