The Mallen Trilogy

The Mallen trilogy traces the decline and dispersal of a powerful Northumbrian family marked by a distinctive white streak in the hair and by a reputation for pride, violence and sexual scandal. Thomas Mallen’s financial collapse destroys the household’s security and forces legitimate and illegitimate descendants into sharply different lives.

Set against industrial North East England, the sequence follows the family’s attempts to escape inherited patterns of domination and revenge. Servants, labourers and women denied formal power become central to a multigenerational story in which class privilege cannot prevent economic ruin or the consequences of concealed relationships.