Joy and Josephine

Joy or Josephine -which was Jo? Rich girl...poor girl? Jo was the apple of her foster-mother's eye - although Mrs Abinger had never told Jo she was adopted, nor had she resolved the mystery surrounding Jo's background. Then Jo discovers the truth and is off on a wild search for her real identity... There are two alternatives: either she is an abandoned foundling, or she is the wealthy, cherished niece of Sir Rodney Cope. At first, Jo knew which she wanted to be, but there is a lot of heartache before she finds out where she truly belongs...

Great grand daughter to Charles Dickens, Monica (1915-1992) was born into an upper middle class family. Disillusioned with the world she was brought up in - she was expelled from St Paul's Girls' School in London for throwing her school uniform over Hammersmith Bridge - Dickens then decided to go into service, despite coming from the privileged class; her experiences as a cook and general servant would form the nucleus of her first book, One Pair Of Hands in 1939.

Dickens married an American Navy officer, Roy O. Stratton, and spent much of her adult life in Massachusetts and Washington D.C., but the majority of writing continued to be set in Britain. Her book of 1953, No More Meadows, reflected her work with the NSPCC and she later helped to found the American Samaritans in Massachusetts. Between 1970 and 1971 she wrote a series of children's books known as The Worlds End Series which dealt with rescuing animals, and to some extent children. After the death of her husband in 1985, Dickens returned to England where she continued to write until her death aged 77.