Lancashire Legacy [Paperback]

'Catherine Cookson fans will cheer!' (Peterborough Evening Telegraph )

'Brilliant, no one can match her writing ability - Lancashire Lass is Anna Jacobs' new novel. I have just finished reading it, couldn't put it down, it held me absorbed on every page.' (Amazon reader on Lancashire Lass )

'Catherine Cookson fans will cheer!'

At eighteen Cathie longs for more than life as a settler in the Australian bush. She accepts her uncle's offer to send her to England and runs away from her family, not realising he is using her to get revenge on his sister Liza. Attacked at the docks in Liverpool, Cathie takes refuge with the man who saved her, a man who has his own troubles. But as she slowly regains her memory and meets her Lancashire relatives, she must confront the legacy of her mother's past. And even in 1876, the same wealthy families who forced her mother to leave Lancashire are still powerful enough to threaten Cathie's happiness and safety, as well as that of anyone close to her.

Background to 'Lancashire Legacy'
This is my second Australian/Lancashire tale. It's set in 1876 and is the story of Cathie, the daughter of Liza (heroine of my first Aussie tale 'Lancashire Lass'). It was partly inspired by my own daughter, who was brought up in Australia, but went back to England for a time to get to know her family background. A lot of migrants' children do this, and must have done it in the nineteenth century as well.

However, the story also continues Liza's tale as a sub-plot, so readers who've enjoyed 'Lancashire Lass' will meet her again.

I had a lot of trouble finding a name for the hero, and in the end I dreamed it. A man walked out of the mists of my sleep, Scottish, six feet four inches tall, with reddish blond hair - I call him my Scottish Viking. He stood there in the middle of my dream, hands on hips, scowled at me and announced in a Scottish accent, "Ma name's Magnus Hamilton, woman!" And it was so perfect a name, I used it.

This story is partly set in Lancashire and partly in Western Australia, a beautiful part of Australia less well known to the world than Sydney. It wasn't one of the early convict settlements and is still very different from the rest of Australia - as well as being two thousand miles from Sydney. The exact setting is the Peel region, just south of the capital, Perth....

I hope you enjoy my second Aussie tale. For those of you who have read my Gibson Family Saga, look out for the third Aussie tale, which I shall be writing in early 2002, and which will be re-introducing Mark Gibson, the brother who ran away to Australia . . .

Anna Jacobs grew up in Lancashire and emigrated to Australia in 1973, but loves to return to England regularly to visit her family and soak up the history. She has two grown-up daughters and now lives with her husband in a spacious waterfront home. Often as she writes, dolphins frolic outside the window of her study. Inside, the house is crammed with thousands of books. Anna Jacobs has also written a series of novels set in Lancashire about the Gibson family, which are available as Coronet paperbacks..

January

Cathie stood in the shadow of a big gum tree near the lake and stared across at her mother and stepfather, on the long veranda of Lizabrook homestead. She felt a sharp pang of jealousy at how close they always seemed to be, how much they still loved one another. At eighteen, she was of an age to want a man of her own, but since she and her family lived in the depths of the Australian bush, she wasn’t likely to find one. She wanted other things, too, and if she’d been a man would have found a way to become a doctor. She’d been patching up her brothers, sisters and all the family pets since she had first developed an interest in the working of the human body at the age of nine. But women weren’t allowed to become doctors. It sometimes seemed to her women weren’t allowed to do anything but marry and have babies and do endless housework and washing. Feeling even more restless than usual she walked a few paces further on, taking care to keep out of sight. She stared down at the grave of her real father. Would things have been different if Josiah Ludlam had lived? She didn’t really know because her mother rarely spoke of him, but Cathie doubted it. Picking up some twigs and gum nuts, she began to vent her frustration by hurling them into the water. She had to find a way to escape from here or she would go mad with frustration. Even the lake wasn’t a real lake, she thought scornfully, but only a band of shallow water lying beside a half-cleared swamp. It could look really pretty if her stepfather ever found the time to clear the rest of the swamp, but he was always too busy. All he cared about was that the partly finished lake gave them enough water to last through the long, hot summers. They weren’t gentry to need fancy gardens for parading round in. Josiah Ludlam, her father, had been gentry, though, and her mother had once said the lake had been his idea. 'In another of your black moods?' a voice teased and she turned to smile at Brendan, her childhood playmate. He smiled back, his teeth gleaming white against his dark skin. He was very like his mother’s people, as if his body refused to acknowledge the part played in his creation by his Irish father, though his next brother’s skin was much paler than his. 'Don’t you ever get tired of living here at Lizabrook?' Cathie demanded. Brendan’s smile faded. 'You know I do. But at least I’m treated like a human being here. The minute I leave the homestead people treat me like an animal – and a worthless one at that – because of this.' He pointed to his skin. She reached out to squeeze his arm. They were both misfits, but it was even harder for him. Maybe that was what drew them together. She was closer to him than to her half-brothers. Glancing over her shoulder to make sure they were out of sight of the homestead, she took off her shoes and rolled down her stockings. 'Let’s have a paddle. It’s so hot today.' 'Aren’t you supposed to be helping your mother?' Cathie shrugged. 'The housework will still be there when I get back.' It always was. Boring, dreary work, the same day after day. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.