Painted Highway

by Audrey Howard

Vibrant and headstrong, Ally Pearce loves working on the Edith, her family's narrowboat, proving she's the equal of any man on the Leeds to Liverpool canal. Betsy, delicate, calculating and sensuously beautiful, wants only to become a 'lady' - and will use the most unladylike means to become one.



When Dr Tom Hartley enters the sisters' lives after a tragic accident both are attracted to him - but for very different reasons...

Genres: Historical Romance

448 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 12, 2003

About the author

Audrey Howard was born on 1929 in Liverpool, Merseyside, England, UK, and grew up in St Annes on Sea, Lancashire, where she lives in her childhood home.

Before she began to write she had a variety of jobs, among them hairdresser, model, shop assistant, cleaner and civil servant. In 1981, while living in Australia, she wrote the first of her bestselling novels published since 1984. In 1988, her novel The Juniper Bush won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award by the Romantic Novelists' Association.

Reviews

[Ann Hicks · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book started off a bit slowly but just kept getting better and better. I ended up absolutely loving it !!

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Borrowed from the local library back in June 2011 (Blog Post #130), this is another that I thought I would share my views on:

For a slight change this one is set around the waterways of the Pennines, but does still have a strong link to Liverpool ..... when I first started reading Audrey Howard this Liverpudlian link is not something that I felt comfortable with, but now I think I would miss it.

Ally and Betsy Pearce are two very different sisters. Ally is hard-working and determined to get on in her working on their parents Narrowboat, whilst Besty is beautiful beyond measure, but lazy and calculating, her only desire is to marry a gentleman.

Their Father has a dreadful accident and is taken to Liverpool to be treated by Dr Tom Hartley, who is the eldest son of a wealthy shipping company owner.

Both girls are attracted to him, Besty because he could be her meal ticket away from the life of the boat people, and Ally because she actually genuinely fell in love with him at first sight.

Which one is Tom going to fall for though?

A 4 **** Star read this time around, with a much more satisfying ending than the last one.

[Lucy Crook · Rating 2 out of 5]

It took me about 300 pages to get into the book and then with only 140 pages left it started getting interesting.