My Beloved Son - Couverture rigide

Ellen Jebeau married a man who did little but dream, and who then died with debt his only legacy. Whatever else her marriage had lacked, however, she had her son Joseph. She resolved he should have all in life she had missed and to achieve that end, she would stop at nothing.

It was Sir Arthur Jebeau, her late husband's brother, who came to her aid, and soon Ellen and Joseph were living at the old family seat at Screehaugh. It was a convenient arrangement, one which Ellen was not slow to recognise could work to her advantage, for Sir Arthur was a widower and Screehaugh had no mistress...

That was in 1926, but the working out of so many increasingly intertwined destinies would continue for twenty more years and only come to final resolution with Joseph Jebeau's escape from the traumatic heritage of his mother's ruthless ambition and his emergence as his own true self.

My Beloved Son will rank among Catherine Cookson's most compelling and deeply moving novels and her portrayal of Joseph Jebeau is as sensitive and percipient as any this well-loved author has achieved.

Catherine Cookson lived in Northumberland, England, the setting of many of her international bestsellers. Born in Tyne Dock, she was the illegitimate daughter of an impoverished woman, Kate, whom she was raised to believe was her older sister. She began to work in the civil service but eventually moved south to Hastings, where she met and married a local grammar school master.
Although she was originally acclaimed as a regional writer, in 1968 her novel The Round Tower won the Winifred Holtby Award, her readership quickly spread worldwide, and her many bestselling novels established her as one of the most popular contemporary authors. After receiving an OBE in 1985, Catherine Cookson was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1993. She died shortly before her ninety-second birthday, in June 1998, having completed 104 works.