Cotton and Cold Blood is a historical novel based on the real lives of people within the East Lancashire village of Barrowford during the Victorian period . The author is a professional historian and has used many years of research to reproduce a fascinating true story. The central character of the story is Sarah Ann Davis, a young woman born into an iron-working family in the Black Country. As a teenager in the 1880s Sarah was uprooted from her Midlands home, and the love of her life, and placed into domestic service in Barrowford. She was happy in the village until life dealt her a devastating blow in the form of a certain Edison Nowell. The comedy and tragedy of the time are reflected here in a brilliantly observed novel - a must-read for anyone with even the slightest interest in the world of Victorian Lancashire.