Product Description

A three-in-one volume of historical stories set on the north-east coast of Yorkshire where life for the fisher-folk is tough and dangerous and it requires determination and often ingenuity for the families to survive.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #114252 in Books
• Published on: 2005-08-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 259 pages

Synopsis
Theresa Tomlinson has established herself as a talented writer of historical fiction, particularly when pinpointing her home territory on the NE coast of England. Here in one volume are three of her most gripping novels in which she describes the courage and humour with which the fishing families face up to the hard conditions of their lives. The Flither Pickers of Sandwick Bay are the women of the community who spend their days gathering shellfish on the shore - limpets and mussels - and balting the lines for the fishermen. The story centres on young Liza Welford whose mother is haunted by an accident of the past, Liza herself and the women of the village forced to launch the lifeboat when the fishing boat belonging to her father is overturned in a storm. In THE HERRING GIRLS, when tragedy strikes the Lythe family, 13-year-old Dory joins the tough world of the Scotch herring girls in Whitby in order to earn money and save her brothers and sisters from the workhouse.

Family life is destroyed for Ann and Polly Lancroft in BENEATH BURNING MOUNTAIN when the violent and merciless press-gangs invade the cliffs where men and women create alum crystals for a livelihood - and their home is wiped out by a sudden landslide. Skilfully blending fiction with reality, Theresa Tomlinson has written three moving and absorbing stories of close-knit communities of fisher-folk of a hundred years ago whose whole existence is governed by the sea.

From the Back Cover
Life is hard for all the close-knit fishing families on the north-east coast of Yorkshire at the end of the nineteenth century: In Beneath Burning Mountain, Ann and Polly Langtoft face the terrifying violence of the press gangs and the destruction of their home by a landslide, while in The Flither Pickers, Liza Welford is caught up in a dramatic launching of the life boat as well as a mysterious tregedy of the past.
When illness strikes down mother, fatherless Dory Lythe is determined to keep her brothers and sisters from the workhouse. She joins the herring Girls, 'gripping' and packing fish in every kind of weather, standing by the harbour in her father's sea boots. But is she strong enough to survuve the challenge?
Here in one volume are three of Theresa Tomlinson's most gripping novels about the fisher folk of Sandwick Bay, in which the sea and the pull of the tide ultimately shape all their destinies. A terrific read.
'Theresa Tomlinson relies on 'real' events...for shock value in her punchy and emotionally strong novels'
THE TIMES

About the Author
Theresa Tomlinson:
Theresa Tomlinson and her husband are moving from Sheffield to live in Whitby, North Yorkshire where Theresa spent her childhood.Over the years Theresa has acquired an outstanding reputation for her historical novels, particularly those set on the NE coast of England.
Shortlisted twice for the Carnegie Medal and for the Sheffield Children’s Book Award, she takes a keen interest in the area where she lives.
Recent visits to Turkey have fuelled her enthusiasm for the ancient mythology of that part of the world. Her scrupulous research has resulted in two epic stories in which classic tale and imaginative re-enactment make a stunning impact.