Kate Hannigan - Catherine Cookson

Kate is illegitimate and courageous, fighting desperately to free herself from poverty and ignorance.

She had learned from experience, not to expect too much from life – and especially not to expect too much from men. Tim Hannigan, her ‘father’, was a vicious bully. John Herrington had won her trust with charming words- and had then deserted her. But Rodney Prince, the doctor who had chosen to work among Newcastle’s poor, was one of the few men in whom she had lasting faith.

Between Rodney Prince, a wealthy man locked in an unhappy marriage, and Kate Hannigan, a bastard child of the slums, grew a love that opposed all the concepts of Edwardian society.