She thought she knew her family. One photograph proves she has been living a lie.

Joanne has always believed her mother died giving birth to her. It’s a painful truth, but one she’s accepted. Then, whilst sorting through old baby clothes, she finds a photograph tucked away in a box—her birth mother, smiling and very much alive, cradling a newborn in her arms.

As Joanne starts searching, the answers she gets only lead to more questions. Her journey takes her to Rose Cottage, where her mother once lived, and into a past filled with long-hidden secrets. Can she find out what really happened? What could be so terrible that her father has kept it from her for her whole life—and is she ready for the truth?

Revised edition: Previously released as The Secret of the Brighton House, this edition of The Missing Mother of Rose Cottage includes editorial revisions.

Cathy trained as a journalist and wrote about everything from HR and supply chains to football finances and port strategy before moving into public relations. In 2022, after having spent a lifetime pottering around bookshops, she bought Kemptown Bookshop in Brighton, where she has created a community hub that supports local authors and aspiring writers. In 2023, she took on joint management of the Creative Writing Programme, the leading independent centre for creative writing teaching in the south-east of England—the course that set her on track to be a writer. When she’s not writing (or reading), Cathy loves pottering in other people’s bookshops. She lives in Brighton with her three children and two rescue cats.