Love Me or Leave Me - Couverture rigide

The story of Josephine Cox is as extraordinary as anything in her novels. Born in a cotton-mill house in Blackburn, she was one of ten children. Her parents, she says, brought out the worst in each other, and life was full of tragedy and hardship - but not without love and laughter. At the age of sixteen, Josephine met and married 'a caring and wonderful man', and had two sons. When the boys started school, she decided to go to college and eventually gained a place at Cambridge University, though was unable to take this up as it would have meant living away from home. However, she did go into teaching, while at the same time helping to renovate the derelict council house that was their home, coping with the problems caused by her mother's unhappy home life - and writing her first full-length novel. Not surprisingly, she then won the 'Superwoman of Great Britain' Award, for which her family had secretly entered her, and this coincided with the acceptance of her novel for publication.

Josephine gave up teaching in order to write full time. She says, 'I love writing, both recreating scenes and characters from my past, together with new storylines which mingle naturally with the old. I could never imagine a single day without writing, and it's been that way since as far back as I can remember.'

Beautiful Eva Bereton has just three close friends: Patsy, whom she looks upon as a sister; Bill, once her childhood sweetheart, now married and living in Canada; and her mother, to whom she is devoted. When a tragic accident turns Eva's world upside down, Patsy is the only one she can turn to.

A hated figure from the past comes to reclaim the farm and business that Eva had always believed were her parents'. Not even Bill, still in love with Eva, can stop Eva being thrown out on the streets. Together with Patsy, Eva starts a new life far away.

Luckily, they find work and lodgings wherever they settle. But when Eva arrives in Blackburn her past mistakes rise up to haunt her. Yet even when threatened from all sides Eva will never accept that her chances of happiness have been destroyed. Determined and optimistic, she fights on to change her life for the better.