Catherine Cookson: The Rag Nymph

Catherine Cookson's The Rag Nymph tells about a girl named Millie who loses her parents one way or another, and ends up being taken care of by the local junk dealer Aggie. Millie is unhealthily beautiful, and that's why all the men want her. Whether is good for her or not.

There's one thing you learn from Catherine Cookson's books: it's completely normal and even desirable for a grown man to fall in love with a child. A man is a great hero if he can wait until the child is 16 years old. And of course a man also falls in love with a child he's been taking care of since the girl was 7.

Apparently all of Cookson's books are full of pedophilia. And yet when I was young I devoured them, and I don't think I questioned them at all.

 

Catherine Cookson: The House of Women

I've read three of Catherine Cookson's books recently and all of them have involved incest or pedophilia or both. Based on this sample, you have to ask yourself the question, was this the case in all of Cookson's books? I do not remember.

Many generations of women live under the same roof in The House of Women. Life in the house changes when the youngest of the family, 16-year-old Peggy, becomes pregnant and is forced to marry the father of her child.

Reading the book also raises the question of how old you have to be to get married in England. Because of course a 15-year-old girl is saved from her father's incest and pedophilia by marrying a man more than ten years older than her. It is supposed to be true love, and at first sight.

 

Catherine Cookson: The Black Velvet Gown

Can you lie on the back cover of a book? This inevitably comes to mind when reading the hardcover edition of Catherine Cookson's book The Black Velvet Gown from 1994. The back cover claims that the lord of the manor takes an interest in the main character, but that is not the case. The master has someone else in mind.

Riah Millican finds herself in real trouble with her flock of children when her husband unexpectedly dies. She have to leave her home and find work somewhere. Fortunately, they find a person stupid enough to take them under their roof. The new employer shows interest in Riah's children, and starts teaching them. But the greatest sin of a worker is knowing how to read!

And then a terrible tragedy happens...

 

Catherine Cookson: The Golden Straw

I have a project going on where I read the books on my bookshelf and try to decide which ones I want to keep and which ones to give up. I must have said before in this book blog that when I was younger I liked Catherine Cookson's romantic books a lot, but nowadays I find them boring.

The Golden Straw begins in 1879, when young Emily Ratcliffe has recently divorced her husband. She inherits the hat business from her employer, but has a nervous breakdown and decides to go on vacation to the French Riviera. There she meets the charming Paul Steerman, and the rest is history.

Most of the book focuses on young Emily's life, and I found it surprisingly interesting. But then we fast-forward several times decades, and I lost interest each time. Especially when there were so many characters that I got confused.

I remembered that in one of Cookson's books, a brother and sister get married, and have children despite being closely related. I thought that the book was this one, but no. Incest flourishes here too, but children are understood to be left out.

Towards the end of The Golden Straw, I started to get annoyed by the fact that a large part of the book was focused on Emily's life, and naturally we were on her side. But in the end, she was made into some nasty and bitter monster, which I think was completely wrong. Besides, you'd think anyone would be bitter when a husband falls in love with his wife's own child...