The Love Child

Author: Catherine Cookson
Type: Historical Fiction
Pages: 367
Published: 1990

Synopsis: Set in northern England, this book tells about the lives of a family of outcasts living in a small town. Nathaniel Martell and Mria Dagshaw have six children together and have a very loving family. But Maria and Nathaniel were never married and as a result they and their children are scorned and treated as outcasts in their town.

Their eldest daughter, Anna, wants to overcome the legacy thrust upon her by her parents. She has stayed away from romantic interests because she was concerned about the townspeoples' ridicule and negative innuendo. Once she meets and falls in love with Timothy Barrington, a wealthy man she has to come to terms with her past and learn to break away from her close knit family so that she can move on.

My Thoughts: This was one of those books that I quickly picked up at the library one evening. Unfortunately this wasn't one of those 'can't put down' type of historical fiction that I thought it was going to be. This book was a bit too slow for me. I've never read a book by Catherine Cookson before and was thinking it was going to be similar to Julie Garwood or Josephine Cox (both whom I enjoy). This book was really slow in the middle and never really got going.

I did find it interesting how Anna begins to question how perfect her parents really are. In the beginning of the book her father can do no wrong but as Anna grows up she starts to see her parents' flaws, especially her father. She sees how selfish her parents have been and how they have used their children as protection from the outside world and it's condemnation. I thought it would be more of a love story between Anna and Timothy ... but, it seemed to me, that the author barely got that love story in the book before it abruptly ended.

My Rating: 2/5 (meh)