The Mallen Girl

by Catherine Cookson Book 2 in the The Mallen Trilogy series.

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4.2(1,894)

Barbara Mallen grows up beautiful, protected and increasingly isolated by progressive deafness. Her limited access to the conversations around her shields her from a family secret that others fear will eventually destroy the identity she has been given.

Anna Brigmore, Barbara’s governess, knows the truth of the girl’s parentage and has come to love her as a daughter. Protecting Barbara requires Anna to remain silent even as the consequences of earlier Mallen relationships continue to shape the next generation. The novel follows the family after the events of The Mallen Streak, concentrating on how inherited shame, social expectation and physical disability affect a young woman who has been denied the knowledge needed to understand her own position. Barbara’s gradual movement towards independence threatens to bring the concealed past into the open.