This was my first novel, and you can imagine how thrilled I was when it won the Romantic Novelists’ Association New Writer’s Award in 2002, and the Society of Authors’ Sagittarius Prize in 2003.

A brilliant scholar, Beth Sherwin, born into a Catholic working-class family in the Potteries, is devastated when at seventeen she becomes pregnant. The year is 1956 and to protect her loving mother Rose, she bears her secret alone, giving up her baby, Rosemary, for adoption.

Pursuing a career in marketing, she meets Michael, the elder son of the prestigious Rushton family. But she has to fight class prejudice, and the jealousy of her old enemy Ursula. When he asks her to marry him, she faces a dilemma. Dare she tell Michael her guilty secret and risk losing him?

Yet there is another threat to her happiness – her search for the identity of Rosemary’s father is becoming an obsession . . .

Book Reviews

‘Kaine has a gift for storytelling’
Woman’s Way

‘My reader was enthralled, particularly enjoying the period’
The Bookseller

‘The story is a gripping ‘rags-to riches’ tale which will leave readers hooked from the beginning’
Staffordshire Life

There is also a hardback edition, published by Hodder & Stoughton.

Ring of Clay is published by Magna in Large Print and also in Audio, both CD and cassettes - all available from Amazon.