High Street [Paperback]

Praise for Anna Jacobs:
'Catherine Cookson fans will cheer!' (Peterborough Evening Telegraph )

'Anna Jacobs' books are deservedly popular. She is one of the best writers of Lancashire sagas around.' (Historical Novels Review )

'An exciting book of immensely brilliant character portrayal and a great storyline' (Bangor Chronicle on OUR EVA )

'Another cracking read with a vivid insight into family relationships' (Coventry Evening Telegraph on OUR EVA )

'Once again you have given us a story that has me hooked from the first page to the last. The characters are so alive that I am loath to call them characters, they are people - so real that you almost feel for them' (Reader from Scotland on OUR MARY ANN )

In 1845 Annie Gibson can finally leave Salem Street. Her dreams of being able to open an elegant dressmaking salon in the High Street of Bilsden, a Lancashire mill town, have come true. And she is going to take her father and his second family with her, away from poverty, away from the Rows.

But Annie has not left trouble behind. Someone is trying to undermine her business. Her family have their own ideas about what they want to do with their lives. And several men are persistently trying to win favour with the beautiful young widow - including Frederick Hallam, the mill owner, and Daniel O'Connor, her childhood friend.

As Annie gets better acquainted with both, she becomes increasingly confused about her feelings. Can she really be in love? And can she risk trusting any man again?

I'm talking about this, the second in the Gibson Family Saga
HIGH STREET is the second in the Gibson Family Saga. Each book is complete in itself, but they're all about Annie Gibson and her many brothers and sister. In this book Annie moves out of Salem Street and begins to make a new life for herself, her son and her brothers and sisters. She's a brave and lovely woman, but is determined not to marry again - though several men have other ideas.

I was thrilled to write a sequel to SALEM STREET, but also scared, because in the meantime I'd contracted ME (chronic fatigue syndrome). But I was determined not to let that stop me, because you don't get many chances to take off as an author. I'd had so much pleasure from my own reading, I wanted to give other people pleasure from my stories. As I began to write I would work for two hours, then rest for two hours, but I gradually got better. Now I work seven days a week, only taking time off when I really want to do something else - or when I have to give a talk or do PR.

I think it was with HIGH STREET that I learned to do a 'warm fuzzy' ending. I like books which leave me with a happy feeling and it's now become an Anna Jacobs trademark.

Anna Jacobs grew up in Lancashire and emigrated to Australia, but still visits the UK regularly to see her family and do research, something she loves. She is addicted to writing and figures she`ll have to live to be 120 at least to tell all the stories that keep popping up in her imagination and nagging her to write them down.
She`s also addicted to her own hero, to whom she`s been happily married for many years.

Anna Jacobs` novel Pride of Lancashire won the Australian Romantic Book of the Year Award in 2006.