Best part of this entire miniseries: Clive is SUPER SURPRISED that Cissie keeps trying to avoid him, and he keeps chasing her down and pinning her to the ground and to cave walls and stuff, totally indignant. I know it’s a terrible situation, but it’s so badly done that what is supposed to be creepy is hysterically funny instead. Even though he’s wearing the bad-guy moustache, he’s apparently contrite about what he’s done. We know this because when he sees Cissie again, he follows her into the secluded glen where she keeps an eye on her kid and Daddy Fischel, and when she sees Clive and tries to run away he lies down on top of her so he can explain how contrite he is! What a sweetie.

So there's Cissie and her brood, Matthew the Wheelwright, and then Lord Fischel and his mansion and awful (adult) children, Clive and Isabelle. Isabelle is about as evil as a villain can be. Ok, it seems there are many contradictions regarding the plot of this story and personally, I feel, this is as a result of many who had watched the mini-series believing the novel is accurate to the tv/movie adaptation, which it is not.

Cissie ends up having the baby (at the very same time as Matthew’s wedding reception – SYMBOLISM), and it survives. And man, is Daddy Fischel surprised when she doesn’t want to sell her kid! You get thirty minutes of this: He runs after her on the moor and asks her if she loves Matthew the carpenter. She’s like, “Nah, he’s never around when I need him.” Her ninety-six siblings are like, “Wait, what?” Unable to see her sister condemned to such a fate, Cissie strikes a bargain with Lord Fischer, offering to hand over the baby if he will use his influence to secure the dropping of charges against Bella.

The other family we meet are the Fischels. They’re gentry! Also, they’re a can of nuts. Daddy Fischel’s an asshole, Clive Fischel’s a fop, and Isabelle Fischel has been driven insane by the fashions of the 1830s, one of history’s ugliest eras. Clive’s return home adds more complications. He is the child’s father, but Lord Fischel and his vicious daughter lay claim to the little boy. More intrigue and violent confrontations follow, and as in any great novel, there are plenty of unexpected twists to the rest of the story, including romantic ones. I cannot understand why the most of the readers like Matthew's character. He appeared to me egoistic and possessive. By the end of the book I already disliked him completely. He treated both Rose and Cissie terribly. I think Cissie did not really love him, but it was her teenage first romantic touch, and the situation they were in. I think she was depending on him and saw him as their saviour and only friend. My impression is that she was not quite happy during her marriage. Otherwise she would not feel "released" after Matthew's death and would mourn and remember him with love. I did not notice any of them. What is more, I do not recall having read that she loved Matthew since Clive's first return in her live. Siblings that require looking-after: Innumerable downtrodden siblings played by varyingly-talented child actors.

Retailers:

Cissie’s only real ally is Matthew, the carpenter from the village, who’s sweet on Cissie even though he’s married to Rose the miller’s daughter. He’s played by Ray Stevenson, whom the Catherine Cookson miniseries have trained me never to trust, since he plays a jerk in two of them.

Ray was inspired to become an actor after seeing John Malkovich in the play Burn This at a West End theatre. Personal Details What I enjoyed was that this was a sort of dystopian survival novel . . . except it takes place early in the 19th century. Cissie, 15, is the eldest of eleven children (there were 14, but three died previously) when her own parents and an infant die of fever. This is in the County of Durham in Northeast England, and there are few options for the absolutely destitute. But Cissie will hear nothing of her siblings going "into the Poor Law" -- obviously horrific. So with the help of a kind young wheelwright, Cissie manages to set up house in a cave on the fells ["a hill or stretch of high moorland, esp. in Northern England"]. It's fascinating because it goes into great detail about their belongings, their meager meals, how they make do, a sort of Boxcar Children for adults.

When Cissie Brodie loses both of her parents to cholera she is left with nine younger siblings to look after and no income. She is aware that the workhouse is usually the inevitable outcome for people in such dire circumstances - an outcome she is determined to avoid, knowing it will break up her family. In desperation she accommodates them in a cave on the fells – the ‘dwelling place’ – and with the help of Matthew, a wheelwright, she succeeds in building a makeshift home in this rough environment. She resolutely defies all the dogmatic influencers who insist the workhouse is her only option. Clive proved to be reliable and loving. She loved Cissie truly and never pressed her with his presence and desires, never came whining to her, as Matthew did many times.

Hot face-smushing action! He moans about how he loves her, even though he could never even consider marrying her. How…sweet? Here, he consoles her for having given up the bairn in exchange for the commute of a sentence for her younger sister. She stole something, whatever. The struggles of Cissie and her family are in stark contrast to the lifestyle of the local gentry. Separated from his wife, Lord Fischer lives in his stately home in comfort and opulence with a son and a daughter – neither of whom he gets on with. His daughter Isabelle hates the isolated existence in the country, while Clive lives only for painting. Catherine Cookson skillfully weaves their fortunes with those of the impoverished Brodies. One of the funniest things about this miniseries is that everyone else you meet in the entire thing thinks it’s a stupid idea to live in a cave. The priest is like, “…a cave, really?” and the guy who’s clearing out the furniture from the hovel actually lets them take all the furniture into the cave, because he’s like, “…a cave, really?”Turns out not everyone likes this arrangement. You know who really hates the arrangement? Isabelle! …no, I don’t know why either! One of Ray's first roles was in the Catherine Cookson drama The Dwelling Place. He also appeared in a later Catherine Cookson adaptation, The Tide of Life, which starred Gillian Kearney. In the midst of trying to put an end to the girlfight, Clive falls over on top of Cissie, and apparently his pants fell down in the fracas, because as Isabella screams encouragement like it’s the last hundred yards of the Boston Marathon, Clive rapes Cissie.