Catherine Cookson is at her towering best in this immensely powerful and enthralling novel which spans more than three decades, from the 1880s through to the First World War and beyond, as it tells the story of Ward Gibson, his family and those whose destiny is influenced by his marriage to Stephanie McQueen Rich in characterisation and reflecting the wider consequences of a turbulent historical era's effect on the aspirations, fears and follies of individuals, it reaffirms the author's standing as the best-loved and most widely read of today's storytellers