Amazon.com: Year of the Virgins (9780671896508): Catherine Cookson: Books

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1995

Struggling to maintain a facade of family harmony for the sake of their religious beliefs and three grown children, Winifred and Daniel Coulson begin a legacy in which their youngest son, Donald, must choose between the values of the past and present. 30,000 first printing.

#outer_postBodyPS { display: none; } #psGradient { display: none; } #psPlaceHolder { display: none; } #psExpand { display: none; } Struggling to maintain a facade of family harmony for the sake of their religious beliefs and three grown children, Winifred and Daniel Coulson begin a legacy in which their youngest son, Donald, must choose between the values of the past and present. 30,000 first printing.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Hatred and duty and their effect on an English family in 1960 are the themes of Cookson's 14th novel (after The Maltese Angel). Ill-matched Daniel and Winifred Coulson have become enemies. Their children?Stephen, the retarded eldest; Joe, the adopted family rock; Donald, the youngest?all show the scars. Daniel, who has discreet affairs, has begun to consider leaving his miserable marriage for Maggie, the family cook. He has meddled in his sons' lives to get Donald away from Winifred's possessiveness, finagling a match between lovely Annette and Donald that culminates in marriage. All this hurts Joe, whose conflicting loves for the girl and for his brother are becoming nearly too much to bear. Then the newlyweds have a terrible accident leading to tragic consequences that render Winifred insane, and she plots a grisly revenge on her daughter-in-law. Cookson adeptly paints a stark, psychologically realistic portrait of the disintegration of the Coulson clan. The only flaw is the surprise of Winifred's violence, which doesn't quite follow from her characterization. A somber, affecting story for the author's large audience.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

The latest of many from Cookson (e.g., The Maltese Angel, LJ 10/1/94) tells of the Coulson family, circa 1960. Winifred and Daniel Coulson have three sons; retarded Stephen, adopted Joe, and Donald, who is adored and idolized by his mother. The story opens on the eve of Donald's wedding to Annette Allison, an event that was to set Donald free from his mother's obsessive love. As the happy couple are on their way to a new life, fate in the form of a pantechnicon (i.e., a furniture moving van) changes the lives of everyone in the Coulson household. This is a story of love, hatred, duty, a mother's twisted obsession, jealousy, madness, religious mania, and all the wonderful ingredients we have learned to love and look for in a Cookson novel. For most popular collections.?Dawn L. Anderson, North Richland Hills P.L., Tex.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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More About the Author

› Visit Amazon's Catherine Cookson Page

Catherine Cookson was born in Tyne Dock, the illegitimate daughter of a poverty-stricken woman, Kate, whom she believed to be her older sister. She began work in service but eventually moved south to Hastings, where she met and married Tom Cookson, a local grammar-school master.

Although she was originally acclaimed as a regional writer - her novel The Round Tower won the Winifred Holtby Award for the best regional novel of 1968 - her readership quickly spread throughout the world, and her many best-selling novels established her as one of the most popular of contemporary women novelists.

After receiving an OBE in 1985, Catherine Cookson was created a Dame of the British Empire in 1993. She was appointed an Honorary Fellow of St Hilda's College, Oxford, in 1997.

For many years she lived near Newcastle upon Tyne. She died shortly before her ninety-second birthday, in June 1998.