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Julie Shaw

The infamous Canterbury Estate in Bradford, a hotbed of crime, drink and drugs, was a law unto itself in the ’70s. So when one of their own was wronged in any way, the community always had its own way of dealing with it.

The first title in a series of gritty family sagas, Our Vinnie accounts the dramatic true story of a brother’s determination to avenge his younger sister’s rape. Josie was just 11 when her Vinnie, then 14, was taken away to a detention centre. Distraught by his absence and left alone with indifferent parents, when she escapes from one of their rows she naively enters the house of a neighbour, Melvin, who – horrifically – leads her upstairs and overpowers her.

Convinced by her friend Carol, Josie tells her sister Lyndsey about the rape but, with Vinnie out of the picture, Lyndsey uses the information for her own ends. When Vinnie returns, hardened by years inside the system, his outrage on discovering the truth is severe. And with new abuses continually coming to light, a cataclysmic series of violent events begins to spiral out of control…

Dramatic and shocking, Our Vinnie is an unbelievable page-turner, documenting a community forsaken by society, and one brother’s unrelenting determination to take justice into his own hands.

Jim Millea

HarperCollins

Tales of the Notorious Hudson Family

Our Vinnie: The true story of Yorkshire’s notorious criminal family

If you lived on the notorious Canterbury Estate in the ‘40s and ‘50s, then you knew there was one man you did not want to cross: Charlie Hudson. A solitary man, feared and respected by the gangsters of the time, Charlie was a boxer who never lost a fight, in or out of the ring – the most infamous of The Canterbury Warriors.

My Uncle Charlie, the second title in the explosive series unravels a story of debauchery, crime and self-destruction. Charlie Hudson was a born leader. The eldest of eight brothers and four sisters and with a boxer for a father, fighting was in his blood. And as the young protégé of local Italian gangster, Mr Cappovanni, Charlie not only learned to knock every opponent out, he also learned the tools of the crime and extortion trade well; emerging into adulthood in the middle of the war years as a natural heir: running cons, illegal books and a band of prostitutes.

But when Charlie met Betty, a sweet, caring girl, he was determined to be a better man for her. He’d still deal with ‘business’ but no more would he bed his working girls, and the birth of their baby girl, Elizabeth, sealed it: he knew life could not get any better. But for a man who had only ever lived in the belly of the Canterbury Estate underworld, it could definitely get worse…

Gritty and engrossing, book two of the Hudson family saga delves deeper into history of the infamous Canterbury Warriors; the true story of one man’s ascendancy to power, and the tragedy that brought it all crashing down.

My Uncle Charlie

Behind the notorious Hudson men who dominated the Canterbury Estate for over 30 years were the girls, and my mam Shirley. Whether marrying into or determined to escape from it, the third instalment of this gritty series recounts the incredible stories of the unflinching women behind the legendary Hudson family.

The Canterbury Estate in Bradford during the ’50s and ’60s was a tight-knit community reared on poverty, crime and violence, and at the top of the heap were the infamous Hudson family. But it wasn’t just the boys who had a story to tell: from matriarch Annie, who gave birth to 13 children, to daughters Margaret and Eunice, who married up and out, each had a personality as indomitable as the last.

Then came Shirley Read, who was just 17 when she fell in love with Keith, one of the Hudson lads. To Shirley, the only child of affluent parents, the poverty of the unruly estate was as exciting as it was mysterious; newspapers for tablecloths, jam jars for cups, and, even by that time, no electricity. But it was a friendship forged with Annie and June, the younger Hudson sisters, that would teach Shirley not only to how to survive, Canterbury-style, but would also give her the strength to overcome an unexpected personal tragedy that would soon become a nightmare for women across the world…

Eye-opening and warm, this is the vivid account of the ‘Tucker’ girls; the resourceful women at the helm of a notorious Bradford family who will never be forgotten.

My Mam Shirley

Family is not always a place of safety.

Kathleen was just eight years old when her mother was tragically killed in a car accident. And when her father remarries it is to the bitter and resentful Irene who has two children of her own and no space in her heart for another. Irene goes out of her way to make Kathleen's life as miserable as possible and will stop at nothing to get her out of their lives…

When Kathleen is sixteen, a shocking incident rocks the family, and life takes a darker turn.

Among this darkness, Kathleen finds a glimmer of hope in an older man, but Irene is ruthless in her mission to destroy her.

Can Kathleen find happiness or is she destined for tragedy?

Blood Ties: Family is not always a place of safety

It’s 1971 and seventeen-year-old Christine is about to give birth to her son. When her family throw her out, Christine has the biggest fight of her life to bring up her son safe on the infamous Canterbury Estate in Bradford, rife with crime, alcohol and drugs, a place where family is everything and nothing.

It's Friday evening on the Canterbury Estate in Bradford and Christine, who's been rushed to hospital by her friend, Josie, is on the maternity ward giving birth. She's 17 and terrified. Not just of the pain, which is ripping her in two, but because she knows that once the baby arrives, her family is never going to speak to her again.

Her beautiful baby boy is about to start a chain of events that will lead to tragedy - and only her own family can save her.

Nigel Peever

Bad Blood

It’s 1983 and best friends Vicky and Lucy swear that they will always be there for each other, that they’ll never let anyone come between them. But fast forward 4 years and life on the Canterbury Estate has gotten very messy.

Lucy has fallen for local policeman’s son, Jimmy. And Vicky is madly in love with Paddy, the charming but ruthless local bad boy. The boys are bitter enemies and determined to keep the two girls apart. But then Vicky is accused of murder, and even her drug-dealer boyfriend wants her mouth shut, permanently. Maybe Lucy is the only one who can save her…

Love, murder, revenge. Who can you really trust when there’s blood on your hands?