Pride family Books in Order

The Pride family trilogy traces one Lancashire family's fortunes from the years before the First World War through to the hungry, hopeful decades that follow. Each book follows a different young woman with the Pride name as she fights for love, independence and a place in a rapidly changing world.

Ellie Pride begins in the early 1900s. After the sudden death of her mother, spirited Ellie is sent away from her modest Preston home to live with a wealthier aunt and uncle. On her mother's deathbed she promised to choose security over passion, so she pushes away her feelings for local craftsman Gideon Walker and agrees to a more socially acceptable match. The choice leads to a loveless marriage and years of strain, forcing Ellie to discover reserves of stubborn strength she did not know she had.

In Connie's Courage the spotlight falls on Connie Pride, who finds herself abandoned and pregnant in one of Liverpool's roughest courts. Deserted by her lover, threatened by his bullying uncle and too proud to ask her estranged relatives for help, she seems to have run out of options. A chance act of kindness opens the door to training as a nurse at the Poor Hospital, where gruelling shifts and a flood of First World War casualties demand everything she can give. Friendship, music hall outings and the possibility of new love slowly help her imagine a different future.

Hettie of Hope Street follows the next generation. Orphaned Hettie has been taken in by Ellie and her husband and treated as part of the family, yet she has never quite felt that she belongs. Gifted with a remarkable singing voice, she leaves the security of Preston for the bright lights of Liverpool and then London, chasing a career on the stage. Backstage glamour sits alongside the shadows cast by the Great War and the fear of the coming Depression, and Hettie must decide what matters most when tragedy strikes.

Although each novel tells a complete story, together they show how questions of class, respectability and women's work echo across the years. We see daughters wrestling with the promises made by their mothers, and young women testing the limits placed on them by family and society. Nursing, music and performance run through the books, offering both escape and purpose.

For readers who like long, absorbing family sagas that start before the familiar territory of World War Two, the Pride family sequence offers a rich picture of northern English life as the twentieth century unfolds.