Author Ruth Hamilton dies

Ruth Hamilton, author of The Corner House (Corgi), has died aged 76.

Born in Bolton, the setting for many of her novels, Hamilton was the author of several titles including A Whisper to the Living (Corgi), That Liverpool Girl, Lights of Liverpool, A Liverpool Song and A Mersey Mile, all published by Pan Macmillan, which has published her since 2007.

Wayne Brookes, publishing director for fiction at Pan Macmillan, said: “To call Roofy (as I always knew her) a ‘character’ was a vast understatement. She was more like a force of nature and one incredible storyteller. We laughed, cried and screamed at each other for six years, and today I lost a friend and a sparring partner. It’s true to say that there will be a huge Roofy shaped hole in my life."

He added: “As she very often said at the end of her phone calls, of which there were many: ‘love ya our kid. Ta-ra!’. Well ‘Ta-ra to you Roofy. Love ya more our kid'.”

Hamilton’s agent, Caroline Sheldon, said: “Ruth Hamilton was a wonderful writer.  She had a rare power to tell a story and involve the reader in the lives of her characters. I had the pleasure of being her literary agent for 12 years and her death is an enormous loss. The phrase we will not see her like again can be a cliché but, in the writer Ruth Hamilton’s case, it is totally appropriate.”

Hamilton has sold 716,801 books for £3.23m since Nielsen records began in 1998. Her biggest seller was 1999’s The Corner House, which has sold 85,761 copies.