The Thursday Friend

Hannah and Humphrey Drayton were regarded by all who knew them as the perfect married couple. However, Hannah soon came to realise that this stuffy, City broker was stifling her with his insistence that she should always comply with his wishes. The only relief she had from his tyranny was his absence on Thursday evenings, when he played bridge with a group of acquaintances, and at weekends, which he spent with an elderly couple who regarded him as the son they had never had.

Hannah, in despair and in the face of her husband's ridicule, took refuge in her writing, and it was the completion of a book for children and an advertisement in the local newspaper that took her to the office of a publisher, a visit that was to change her life. There she was to meet David Graventon, an assistant to the publisher, and a man she was soon to think of as her Thursday friend. Taking advantage of Humphrey's absences, she and David would meet and talk, visit the theatre and the cinema - activities she had never enjoyed with her husband. He, of course, knew nothing of Hannah's 'other life', being preoccupied with protecting what he imagined were his future interests. But Humphrey had his own secrets; and when events occurred that he could not control, the outcome for his ambitions was entirely unexpected.

As for Hannah, her Thursday friend was to become the saviour of her very existence - but would he manage to resolve his own not inconsiderable personal difficulties and offer Hannah the happiness she craved?

With its deceptively simple theme, The Thursday Friend is a remarkable novel that displays Catherine Cookson's consummate ability to explore human relationships. It will enjoy immense popularity among her many readers throughout the world.