Through first-hand interviews with the popular author and a close study of her work, this thoroughly absorbing biography reveals who Catherine Cookson really was.

Catherine Cookson was a very private woman, but she left many clues to her life, opinions and personality in her fiction. Piers Dudgeon knew her well. He has previously written two books about her life, prompting Catherine to write: "You know me too well, sir!" In his new biography, he combines the hours of first-hand interviews with the author with a thorough grasp and understanding of her novels, to produce a revealing portrait of one of Britain's best-loved writers, and how her life and her work were inseparably entwined.

Catherine Cookson drew heavily on her own life in her novels. Not only in Tyneside, where many of her stories are set and where she grew up, but also in the other events and locations of her life. Her novels mirror her repressions, chart her emotional growth and, Piers Dudgeon argues, her sexuality. He explores what he calls, Catherine's seven faces, or facets, of her complex personality, facets which change through the course of her life. Each is reflected in one of Catherine's most abiding literary creations from Annie Hannigan, the "poor orphan in the storm" in the Kate Hannigan series of novels, to Biddy Millican, heroine and pretentious self-improver of The Black Velvet Gown.

Although his subject was a private person, Piers Dudgeon has succeeded in producing an intimate and revealing portrait of Catherine Cookson that all of her fans will love.