A Widow's Courage cover art

A Widow's Courage

Birch End Series 2

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About this listen

 Lancashire 1934. Three years after her husband's sudden death, Stella comes into some money unexpectedly and decides to make a new start in the country. She settles on Ellin Valley, where she quickly begins to make friends. She falls in love with a cottage in Birch End, but an unscrupulous man wants it too. Will she be able to buy her dream home?

Life has changed drastically for local handyman Wilf Pollard as well. When tragedy strikes, Wilf is left as the only support of his two young children. But his friends rally round to help so that he can pull his life together and take up an exciting new job with a well-respected builder.

Some of the local council are eager to deal with the squalid conditions of the Backshaw Moss slum, but others will stop at nothing to keep their profitable rents. And Stella's dream cottage is threatened by their plans to build yet more cheap housing. Can Stella, Wilf and the residents of Birch End pull together to make sure good triumphs over evil?

(P) 2020 Hodder & Stoughton Ltd©2020 Anna Jacobs Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Small Town & Rural

Critic reviews

This is that rare thing, a pacy page-turner with a ripping plot and characters you care about . . . [Anna Jacobs is] especially big on resourceful, admirable women. Great stuff!
Anna Jacobs' books are deservedly popular. She is one of the best writers of Lancashire sagas around
[Anna Jacobs' books have an] impressive grasp of human emotions
All stars
Most relevant
How this lady speaks in so many voices to read the story for the different characters is beyond me - absolutely brilliant, thank you.

Narration

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Enjoyed this second book of this series, looking forward to book 3, story keeps you entertained with lots of twists and turns, lovable characters as with series one and the books in this series so far

Well worth the read

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I loved the first book in this saga and the second one was even better. I am really glad that Wilf who's featured in most books of the saga as a whole including ellandale finally got his own story. Stella was a lovely character and so supportive to Wilf. Given they'd both been through the same thing it was grate to see them supporting each other. I was reading the saga's simultaniously however given that bagshaw moss mentions things that happened in this series going to read book 3 of this first then complete Bagshaw moss.

Fantastic book.

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I love Anna Jacobs stories but I found this one predictable.and the story drawn out. I was not too keen on the narrator as it was at times a bit jerky on the emphasis.

Disappointed

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I enjoyed this story, and the narration , but the end was extremely disappointing. It seemed poorly thought out and almost amateurish. Narrator too exaggerated on accents of men.

not the best

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