The Obsession - Softcover

Catherine Cookson lived in Northumberland, England, the setting of many of her international bestsellers. Born in Tyne Dock, she was the illegitimate daughter of an impoverished woman, Kate, whom she was raised to believe was her older sister. She began to work in the civil service but eventually moved south to Hastings, where she met and married a local grammar school master.
Although she was originally acclaimed as a regional writer, in 1968 her novel The Round Tower won the Winifred Holtby Award, her readership quickly spread worldwide, and her many bestselling novels established her as one of the most popular contemporary authors. After receiving an OBE in 1985, Catherine Cookson was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1993. She died shortly before her ninety-second birthday, in June 1998, having completed 104 works.

Cookson's hyperventilating, unbuttoned tales of (usually period) Tyneside passion ricocheting among the social classes in (generally) northern England (The Year of the Virgins, 1995, etc.) were good fun. But here the Cookson formulaic cast of characters--a villain vile, a noble lover, nice girls, and one completely mad shrew--are simply tiresome. The kind-souled kingpin now is bachelor doctor John Falconer, who has just bought into a practice near the estate of Pine Hurst, owned by sly Simon Steel, father of four daughters: lovely Helen, pretty Marion, bouncy childlike Rosie, and Beatrice the horrid. Dr. John is enthralled by Helen, but she and Marion are off to marry; even Rosie is engaged--although later Beatrice will end that, since she wants company in her beloved Pine Hurst, which she plans to save at all costs. Father Simon, you see, has been fatally beaned by a tree, and after his death all his bad deeds are aired: whoring and gambling and drinking. Beatrice is prepared to do battle to preserve her beloved house, now deeply in debt. She glowers, harangues, schemes, manipulates her sisters, and eats chocolates. But there's a hiatus from meanness when she unaccountably mellows and Dr. John, high on wine, unaccountably proposes--but, oh, what a mistake. Beatrice is insatiable in bed (to the hardworking doctor's dismay) and fairly eerie out of it. She not only nips in the bud a Rosie romance, but has been seen to pull a gun on innocent gypsies. By the close, Beatrice is fully bananas, and while true lovers find one another (Helen's fine husband conveniently contracts TB), Beatrice's virtuosi assaults--brick- throwing, flying tackles--lead to a time-honored immolation scene, Mrs. Danversstyle. The dialogue here splatters instead of popping; and there's a plenitude of ``shut up's!'' and other less than inventive up-front sentiments. A lesser effort, then, but never count out the Cookson- addicted. (Literary Guild alternate) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.