Fantastic

Yet another Catherine Cookson fantastic novel. Once I started reading I could not stop till I finished.

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Entertaining

A good long read, great twists and turns as always, interesting divides of the classes, posh characters a bit too ponsey ,well written

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1 person found this helpful

saccharin and predictable for a Catherine Cookson

feels like a first novel or something. I like Catherine Cookson for the gritty realism but this was anything but. very mawkish. feels like a different author. preferred Solace of Sin. wish Audible had her more famous novels available.

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1 person found this helpful

Can’t get into story

Not really enjoyed her voices I did try listening a few times but still not very good

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How Catherine Cookson always writes about her characters so realistically.

Matthew was such a likeable down-to- earth man injured in such an awful but honourable way. Liz who nurses him was a real angel - with a sense of humour.
The story revolves around them respectively and their families, so that your get to know each person, and the narrator is brilliant and portraying each voice.
This is one of my favourite of Catherine Cookson's and I may just listen again... just for the delight of it!

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1 person found this helpful

The House Divided

Catherine Cookson writes fantastically good books - they are so absorbing and the characters so enchanting that I don’t’ want the stories to end!

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Not one of her finest

I know that Catherine Cookson has fallen out of favour in recent years after her long unchallenged reign as the bestselling British author, but I find myself returning to her novels every once in a while, like a comfort blanket in book form. There is nothing particularly challenging about her stories and they tend to follow a fairly predictable path, but they are eminently readable and Cookson's ability to write flawed, believable, likeable characters is second to none.
Having said this, I probably would not return to A House Divided that soon. Compared to novels such as The Glass Virgin or A Dinner of Herbs, which I find I can read multiple times, A House Divided lacked the spark that engages the reader and by the end I was getting a little bored. The main issue is that there is never any real obstacle to the main characters' love story - everybody loves Matthew despite his blindness, everybody loves Liz despite her lower class, Liz and Matthew love each other, the horrible ex-fiancé is dispatched quickly etc. There are none of the usual Cookson twists or self-realisations that make her novels so entertaining.
I believe that Cookson wrote this not long before her death and I think it shows - she tends to repeat herself a bit too often and the novel is overlong - it could have done with a good edit to be honest, and this might have overcome some of its shortcomings.
Having said this, it is still an entertaining story of its type and I don't regret my purchase. I wish Audible would offer a wider range of her other novels now - groundbreaking they are not, but when you need to immerse yourself into a comfortable rags to riches love story, her tales can't be beaten!

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9 people found this helpful

Loved it 📕

Love it so much but all her books are great if only there was a book 2 of this

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Very enjoyable. read very well.

I could not wait to hear the next chapter. I had read the book many years ago. But it is very relaxing to have it read to me.

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4 people found this helpful

great book

loved it great read kept me gripped all the way through would recomend highly fab

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1 person found this helpful