Meet the Author
Margaret Growcott has been a compulsive writer since High School when she won a prize for an essay. Born in England, she grew up in a small seaside town in Cheshire, and attended college in Liverpool. Since coming to Canada, Margaret has regularly written stories and articles for magazines and newspapers. She now lives on Vancouver Island and this is her debut novel.
About the Book
Bales & Spires
By Margaret Growcott
In 19th century England, Jane Kershaw, at ten years old, works every morning in a Lancashire cotton mill, and then goes to school in the afternoons. She is the youngest of eight sisters who all work in the cotton industry. Each sister has a tale of their own, with blazing ambition, disillusionment and thwarted love. Can they, and Jane, in particular, escape their humdrum existence and realize their dreams in this strict and harsh Victorian era?
Fiction, Romance, Historical, Victorian Fiction, Family Life, SiblingsFiction, Contemporary Women
336 pages | Black & White | 5.5 x 8.5 inches
Paperback $21.99 USD
978-1-5255-8434-3
Hardcover $34.99 USD
978-1-5255-8433-6
BOOK PRODUCED THROUGH FRIESENPRESS
The book is available through Ingram and Chapters/Indigo.
You can also purchase on Amazon by clicking on the button below…
Kirkus Review
In this debut historical novel, eight sisters, living in an industrial town near Manchester in Victorian England, find love, careers, and futures within the confines of the society they live in. The book opens in 1882 as 10-year-old Jane, the youngest Kershaw sister, returns home from nearly a year spent living with her father in coastal Birkenhead…
With the siblings’ father living far away for his work as a shipbuilder, the family is headed by practical and dedicated Emma who sends her sisters off to their jobs at the local cotton mill, and does her best to keep them out of trouble. Over the tale’s eight-year span, the sisters move into adulthood. facing a variety of challenges and finding their paths away from factory work…
The book is highly character driven, bringing to mind Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cranford. . . . Margaret Growcott has an eye for historical detail and the descriptions of food and clothing are rewarding, as is the plot thread…
The book acknowledges the hardship of factory life without being overwhelmingly bleak. Despite the challenges the sisters face, the novel is ultimately upbeat, offering an optimistic look at one family’s way of adapting to the changes England undergoes in the late 19th century.
An engaging British family tale that captures an era.
Contact Margaret Growcott
Margaret welcomes your questions and comments. Please use the form below to contact her…
