Year of the Virgins

From Publishers Weekly Hatred and duty and their effect on an English family in 1960 are the themes of Cookson's 14th novel (after The Maltese Angel). Ill-matched Daniel and Winifred Coulson have become enemies. Their children?Stephen, the retarded eldest; Joe, the adopted family rock; Donald, the youngest?all show the scars. Daniel, who has discreet affairs, has begun to consider leaving his miserable marriage for Maggie, the family cook. He has meddled in his sons' lives to get Donald away from Winifred's possessiveness, finagling a match between lovely Annette and Donald that culminates in marriage. All this hurts Joe, whose conflicting loves for the girl and for his brother are becoming nearly too much to bear. Then the newlyweds have a terrible accident leading to tragic consequences that render Winifred insane, and she plots a grisly revenge on her daughter-in-law. Cookson adeptly paints a stark, psychologically realistic portrait of the disintegration of the Coulson clan. The only flaw is the surprise of Winifred's violence, which doesn't quite follow from her characterization. A somber, affecting story for the author's large audience. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal The latest of many from Cookson (e.g., The Maltese Angel, LJ 10/1/94) tells of the Coulson family, circa 1960. Winifred and Daniel Coulson have three sons; retarded Stephen, adopted Joe, and Donald, who is adored and idolized by his mother. The story opens on the eve of Donald's wedding to Annette Allison, an event that was to set Donald free from his mother's obsessive love. As the happy couple are on their way to a new life, fate in the form of a pantechnicon (i.e., a furniture moving van) changes the lives of everyone in the Coulson household. This is a story of love, hatred, duty, a mother's twisted obsession, jealousy, madness, religious mania, and all the wonderful ingredients we have learned to love and look for in a Cookson novel. For most popular collections.?Dawn L. Anderson, North Richland Hills P.L., Tex.Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Booklist Cookson's newest novel, set in England during the 1960s, focuses on a Catholic family about to celebrate the marriage of their youngest son. The wedding day, already a day of mourning for the groom's obsessively possessive mother, turns into a tragedy when the couple are involved in a car crash that leaves the groom crippled just as they embark on their honeymoon. From this bizarre opening, the story grows stranger as the mother is hospitalized in a mental institution, from which she escapes to wreak revenge on her troubled family. Her obsession with her son's purity and her husband's infidelity are her reasons for trying to murder them all. To stay within the genre of a romance novel, Cookson inserts a subplot involving the smoldering affection of the oldest son for the new bride and his determination to take his brother's place after the young man's death. Melancholy fiction from an accomplished historical novelist. Denise Perry Donavin Read more