Kate Hannigan
by Catherine Cookson
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Drawn to the beautiful girl he encounters amid the squalor of the Fifteen Streets slums, Dr. Rodney Prince wants nothing more than to rescue Kate Hannigan, who has suffered at the hands of her vicious, bullying father.Tags
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This book (#8 on my History of Romance curriculum) took me a while to finish. Mostly because I started in October and then took a little hiatus to read monster romances in honor of Halloween but then kept reading monster romances until like last week (mid-January). Once I got into it, I really enjoyed it.
The whole book takes place on one day, Christmas Eve, over like 11 or 12 years. It starts with Christmas Eve when Kate Hannigan is 19 and shows back up to her childhood home to give birth. She has been away and working as a maid for a prominent family. Her pregnancy is the result of an affair with the family's son. This 1st Christmas Eve is seen almost entirely through the eyes of the MMC, Dr. Rodney Prince, a young doctor from an show more upper-class family who has been "called" to work with the poor and working-class, much to the dismay of his family and wife. Dr. Prince is there to deliver Kate's baby. Through his observations, we learn that Kate is uncommonly beautiful, her childhood home is in an impoverished neighborhood, and her father Tim is cruel, a drinker, and possibly abusive. We also learn that Dr. Prince is in an unhappy marriage.
The following Christmas Eve, Kate comes home from her job working for elderly siblings who have sort of adopted her - they buy her nice clothes and give her lessons and for Christmas, they send her home with money and groceries for her family. Her mother Sarah has been caring for the baby, Annie, this year. Dr. Prince stops in to check on Tim, who hurt his leg and encounters Kate again for the 1st time since delivering her baby.
What follows is a series of Christmas Eves where their paths intersect. Kate works in a different town but always returns on Christmas Eve. Through his practice, Dr. Prince develops a relationship with Kate's mother and Annie. Each Christmas Eve, they are sort of cosmically drawn to each other, but just out of each other's reach, throughout Dr. Prince's doomed marriage and Kate's many hardships, which include two broken engagements, caring for her sick mother, and fending off her abusive father.
*Spoiler* At the end, they are both finally free of any obstacles to their happiness together. I did want more of an ending than what basically amounted to "They hugged and whispered each other's names. The end". But it was a gorgeously written book. At the beginning of every chapter, I was like "Oh shit, what's going to happen to poor Kate THIS Christmas Eve".
While I was finishing up this Kate Hannigan, Kresley Cole's Munroe, a book I've literally been waiting years for, dropped into my library. That I decided to stay and finish, instead of immediately starting Munroe, is testament to how invested I was in the outcome. Would recommend. show less
The whole book takes place on one day, Christmas Eve, over like 11 or 12 years. It starts with Christmas Eve when Kate Hannigan is 19 and shows back up to her childhood home to give birth. She has been away and working as a maid for a prominent family. Her pregnancy is the result of an affair with the family's son. This 1st Christmas Eve is seen almost entirely through the eyes of the MMC, Dr. Rodney Prince, a young doctor from an show more upper-class family who has been "called" to work with the poor and working-class, much to the dismay of his family and wife. Dr. Prince is there to deliver Kate's baby. Through his observations, we learn that Kate is uncommonly beautiful, her childhood home is in an impoverished neighborhood, and her father Tim is cruel, a drinker, and possibly abusive. We also learn that Dr. Prince is in an unhappy marriage.
The following Christmas Eve, Kate comes home from her job working for elderly siblings who have sort of adopted her - they buy her nice clothes and give her lessons and for Christmas, they send her home with money and groceries for her family. Her mother Sarah has been caring for the baby, Annie, this year. Dr. Prince stops in to check on Tim, who hurt his leg and encounters Kate again for the 1st time since delivering her baby.
What follows is a series of Christmas Eves where their paths intersect. Kate works in a different town but always returns on Christmas Eve. Through his practice, Dr. Prince develops a relationship with Kate's mother and Annie. Each Christmas Eve, they are sort of cosmically drawn to each other, but just out of each other's reach, throughout Dr. Prince's doomed marriage and Kate's many hardships, which include two broken engagements, caring for her sick mother, and fending off her abusive father.
*Spoiler* At the end, they are both finally free of any obstacles to their happiness together. I did want more of an ending than what basically amounted to "They hugged and whispered each other's names. The end". But it was a gorgeously written book. At the beginning of every chapter, I was like "Oh shit, what's going to happen to poor Kate THIS Christmas Eve".
While I was finishing up this Kate Hannigan, Kresley Cole's Munroe, a book I've literally been waiting years for, dropped into my library. That I decided to stay and finish, instead of immediately starting Munroe, is testament to how invested I was in the outcome. Would recommend. show less
This is one author who, for me, has never written a bad book - I have loved all of them.
Back Cover Blurb:
Dr Rodney Prince has never seen a girl who looked more out of place in the grime and squalor of the Fifteen Streets than did Kate Hannigan. He knew she had suffered at the hands of men: Tim Hannigan, her 'father', was a vicious bully; John Herrington, a smooth-talking seducer, had left her with his child.
But Rodney Prince's desire for a family had been frozen out by a wife who'd wanted Harley Street, not a Tyneside slum. By contrast, Kate glowed with a warmth that far outshone the hard, brittle beauty of Stella and exposed the emptiness in his heart.
And so, between Rodney Prince, a wealthy man locked in an unhappy marriage, and Kate show more Hannigan, a bastard child of the slums, grew a love that opposed all the concepts of an Edwardian society. show less
Back Cover Blurb:
Dr Rodney Prince has never seen a girl who looked more out of place in the grime and squalor of the Fifteen Streets than did Kate Hannigan. He knew she had suffered at the hands of men: Tim Hannigan, her 'father', was a vicious bully; John Herrington, a smooth-talking seducer, had left her with his child.
But Rodney Prince's desire for a family had been frozen out by a wife who'd wanted Harley Street, not a Tyneside slum. By contrast, Kate glowed with a warmth that far outshone the hard, brittle beauty of Stella and exposed the emptiness in his heart.
And so, between Rodney Prince, a wealthy man locked in an unhappy marriage, and Kate show more Hannigan, a bastard child of the slums, grew a love that opposed all the concepts of an Edwardian society. show less
Match found in the German National Library.
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Catherine Cookson, 1906 - 1998 British writer Catherine Cookson was born in Tyne Dock, Co. Durham. She was born illegitimate and into poverty with a mother who was, at times, an alcoholic and violent. From the age of thirteen, Catherine suffered from hereditary hemorrhage telangiectasia. She also believed, for many years, that she was abandoned as show more a baby and that her mother was actually her older sister. Catherine wrote her first short story, "The Wild Irish Girl," at the age of eleven and sent it to the South Shields Gazette, which sent it back in three days. She left school at the age of thirteen to work as a maid for the rich and powerful. It was then that she saw the great class barrier inside their society. From working in a laundry, she saved enough money to open an apartment hotel in Hastings. Schoolmaster, Tom Cookson, was one of her tenants and became her husband in 1940. She suffered several miscarriages and became depressed so she began writing to help her recovery. Catherine has written over ninety novels and, under the pseudonym of Catherine Marchant, she wrote three different series of books, which included the Bill Bailey, the Mary Ann, and the Mallen series. Her first book, "Kate Hannigan" (1950), tells the partly autobiographical story of a working-class girl becoming pregnant by an upper-middle class man. The baby is raised by Kate's parents and the child believes them to be her real parents and that Kate is her sister. Many of her novels are set in 19th century England and tell of poverty in such settings as mines, shipyards and farms. Her characters usually cross the class barrier by means of education. Catherine received the Freedom of the Borough of South Shields and the Royal Society of Literature's award for the Best Regional Novel of the year. The Variety Club of Great Britain named her Writer of the Year and she was voted Personality of the North-East. She received an honorary degree from the University of Newcastle and was made Dame in 1933. Just shortly before her ninety-second birthday, on June 11, 1998, Catherine died in her home near Newcastle-upon-Tyne. "Kate Hannigan's Girl" (1999), was published posthumously and continues the story of her first novel. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title*
- Als koppige wijn
- Original title
- Kate Hannigan
- Original publication date
- 1950
- People/Characters
- Kate Hannigan; Rodney Prince
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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