Beggars & Choosers [Paperback]

'This was a convincing story with a host of well-drawn characters, from all levels of society. It was difficult to put down.' (HISTORICAL NOVELS REVIEW )

'In Beggars & Choosers, Catrin Collier shows us that she knows the streets of Pontyprydd and the Rhonda like no one else. The concrete reality of the streets, shops and houses sits easily on the pages of this meticulously-researched novel, warming the hearts I am sure of the millions of readers in the Welsh diaspora... the luscious, sensual detail of the Collier novel and also the highly personal attachment to its region that characterises Beggars and Choosers.' (MSLEXIA )

'Another typically enjoyable novel from the pen of Wales' answer to Catherine Cookson.***' (BOOKCASE )

Catrin Collier, the author of numerous popular and critically acclaimed novels has brought us yet another winner! (SOUTH WALES ECHO )

'Catrin Collier brings this era and people to life. She makes it possible to imagine the living conditions of the people at that time and the class divide between the wealthy and the poor.' (SOUTH WALES ARGUS )

'Beggars & Choosers is quite graphic in parts, but that fits in with the gritty reality of the age. I enjoyed the book as a whole.' (GWENT GAZETTE )

Catrin Collier, the author of numerous popular and critically acclaimed novels has brought us yet another winner!

The first in a gritty, nostalgic series of novels set in Pontypridd and the Rhondda at the start of the twentieth century.

'I warn you, and it is a solemn warning. Leave me, and you - and who ever you run to - will suffer. I have a husband's rights under God's law: "and those whom God has joined together let no man break asunder." ' In Pontypridd and the Rhondda in 1905 coal is king and the families who sunk the first collieries are rich. None is wealthier or more generous a benefactor than Harry Watkin Jones. At 20, Sali Watkin Jones is about to marry her childhood sweetheart, Mansel, a young and successful businessman, in Pontypridd's wedding of the year. But as tragedy follows tragedy, four short and traumatic years later Sali becomes a penniless outcast fleeing from a violent husband and struggling to support herself and her son in a world very different to the one in which she has been brought up. Sali finds work in the home of a family of colliers. Here she and her son find the warmth and love missing from their lives for so long. As the miners' wages are eroded by the greed of the companies that have replaced private owners, unrest and violence come to the valleys. Caught up in the conflict, Sali finds herself denying her roots, her class and even sacrificing her son's future for the sake of the people she loves and the cause they are prepared to die for.

Catrin Collier was born and brought up in Pontypridd. She worked for a while in Europe and America before returning to her native Wales. She now lives on the Gower Peninsula near Swansea, with her family.