Available Formats
The Bell House: a sweeping novel of power and compassion from bestselling author Ruth Hamilton
By (Author) Ruth Hamilton
Transworld Publishers Ltd
Bantam Press
15th June 2005
United Kingdom
General
Fiction
823.914
Hardback
544
Width 136mm, Height 203mm, Spine 45mm
606g
Another sweeping novel of power and compassion from this exceptional writer. Madeleine Horrocks wanted nothing more than to be famous. Pretty and outspoken, she often alarmed her best friend Amy by expressing doubts - about parents, teachers and, most of all, religion, which according to their strict 1950s Catholic upbringing in Rivington Cross seemed certain, Amy thought, to send them both to Hell. What, after all, was wrong with being a Protestant, Madeleine would ask Or a Jew The good-looking boy they both noticed on their way to school was, it was rumoured, Jewish - his family having fled from Poland at the beginning of the war. Father Sheahan, the whiskey-soaked priest from the local church, had discovered that his secret past was catching up with him, and went in fear of his life. Amy, too, had a secret - a secret which caused her to visit the Bell House, an ancient charnel house outside the village. As they grow up, this place of death becomes a meeting place for the friends, who have to learn that differences in religion can cause unexpected heartache.
Ruth Hamilton became one of the north-west of England's most popular writers, her bestselling books include With Love From Ma Maguire, A Crooked Mile and Dorothy's War. Ruth Hamilton was born in Bolton, which is the setting for many of her novels, and spent most of her life in Lancashire before moving to Liverpool. She died in 2016.