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Series

Mary Ann Series

The Mary Ann stories follow Mary Ann Shaughnessy from an outspoken Tyneside childhood into marriage and parenthood. Her determination to protect her family begins with attempts to rescue her father Mike from alcoholism and repeatedly brings her into conflict with neighbours, employers, clergy and relatives.

Set in post-war North East England, the eight novels combine family comedy with poverty, illness, work and changing expectations for women. Mary Ann’s schemes are often impulsive, but the series treats her fierce loyalty and refusal to accept defeat as the forces that hold the Shaughnessy family together.

Reading order

Books in this series (8 books)

A Grand Man cover

1. A Grand Man

Catherine Cookson

4.3(559)

“Me da’s a grand man!” Mary Ann Shaughnessy has spoken; question her who dare. For although Mary Ann may look quite an ordinary small girl from a dockland tenement, always hot in defense of a ne’er-do-well father, she is in fact a one-man army, armoured with…

The Lord and Mary Ann cover

2. The Lord and Mary Ann

Catherine Cookson

4.3(385)

As has been said before, Mary Ann Shaughnessy is no ordinary child. She first won a place in the hearts of thousands of readers in A Grand Man, described by Alan Melville in a broadcast as “a quite enchanting novel, written by someone who obviously knows…

The Devil and Mary Ann cover

3. The Devil and Mary Ann

Catherine Cookson

4.5(395)

When Mary Ann is sent from her native Tyneside to become a pupil at a high-class convent boarding school on the South Coast, the idea in her benefactor’s mind was that she should be turned into a little lady. In this, the third story in the…

Love and Mary Ann cover

4. Love and Mary Ann

Catherine Cookson

4.4(356)

Her expensive convent education hadn’t changed Mary Ann Shaughnessy one little bit. Sure, she could come over all refined when she had to, but who’d want to talk ever so nice on a farm? But in other respects she was growing up fast. As Mary Ann…

Life and Mary Ann cover

5. Life and Mary Ann

Catherine Cookson

4.4(369)

It is impossible to imagine Mary Ann Shaughnessy as anything but an enchanting, aggravating and utterly natural child, possessed of an outsized love for her father and with an inherent inclination to put right the lives of those near to her. Yet children must grow up.…

Marriage and Mary Ann cover

6. Marriage and Mary Ann

Catherine Cookson

4.6(381)

It hardly seems possible, but Mary Ann Shaughnessy, the irrepressible child of Tyneside whose tempestuous journey through life thousands of readers have followed in the five books previous to this, is engaged to be married. The wedding is set to be in five weeks’ time. Everything…

Mary Ann’s Angels cover

7. Mary Ann’s Angels

Catherine Cookson

4.3(322)

Mary Ann’s , and they are now the proud parents of twins, Rose Mary and David, who are inseparable and the apple of their mother’s eye. But are they really angels? Rose Mary seems as irrepressible as her mother when it comes to managing other people’s…

Mary Ann and Bill cover

8. Mary Ann and Bill

Catherine Cookson

4.4(396)

Mary Ann never wanted to take on Bill in the first place. She had all too shrewd an idea of what it might involve, but both her husband, Corny, and the twins David and Mary Rose, were so keen to have the little bull-terrier puppy that…