Spinners Lake (Gibson Family Saga 5) [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 )

When mill-owner Frederick Hallam dies in 1860, his widow Annie plans to build Spinners Lake, a project that will keep her from destitution. But then artist Tian Gilchrist walks into her life, awakening disturbing memories. Can Annie love another man the way she loved Frederick?

Background information about this book from author
SPINNERS LAKE is the fifth and final book in the Gibson Family saga - though I will confess that I have a secret wish to write the story of Annie's brother Mark - one day! It's complete in itself, but you'll enjoy it even more if you've read the others first.

I got the idea for the theme of this book - Civil War in the US causes cotton famine in Lancashire and Annie has to find a way to help her mill workers to earn a living. So she decides to creat a lake. I grew up in Rochdale and we used to go to Hollingworth Lake for day trips. I only found out after I emigrated to Australia that it was an artificial lake - and how early it was constructed. I had a bit of a worry about how you actually make a lake, but luckily I met a man who builds dams and he spent half an evening at a barbecue drawing diagrams in the ground to show me.

When I began writing the book I wept for a week, because Frederick Hallam, a character I loved, was dying. He's a wonderful man and makes advance plans to smooth the future path for his beloved wife Annie.

Tian Gilchrist, whom Annie met in HALLAM SQUARE (Book 4) is still in love with her, but knows she is sincerely mourning her husband, so goes to America and gets caught up in the Civil War there. It was great fun researching that part, and I found a picture of an actual street in New York in that period, so had him take lodgings there.

Annie's youngest sister Joanie has her own problems. She's fed up with everything till a new admirer crosses her path - but his family make their relationship very difficult.

Since it's not going to be easy to persuade Annie to consider marriage again, I had to make Tian vulnerable - and even then I knew the relationship would be stormy. I didn't realise when I started writing the book how dangerous it would be for Annie at the end - but of course, this is an Anna Jacobs book, and all my books have happy endings. Try it and see!

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.