The final instalment in Joanne Clague’s Sheffield Sagas trilogy will be released later this month.

The Watchman’s Widow follows Rose, struggling to make ends meet after losing her husband in a terrorist attack during the mid-19th century Outrages.

She ends up sending her 10-year-old daughter to work in the factory and is confronted by the horrifying realities of factory work when her lodger develops phossy jaw.

Following a meeting with Annie, a middle-class newspaperman’s wife, who is lobbying for better working conditions, Rose finds herself unable to sit back and not get involved.

Drawing on her passion for the era, Joanne blends real-life events with engaging fictional characters to bring to the reader a gripping and absorbing story.

Historical fiction writer and former journalist Joanne told Island Life: ‘The grim reality of factory work and lack of rights for the working classes, particularly women, is threaded throughout the trilogy.

‘Right from the outset, in the first novel, my focus was on the lives of those who lived and worked in the path of that catastrophic flood.

‘I just explored this more deeply in The Watchman’s Widow.

‘As is often the case during research, I came across the particular peril faced by match factory workers almost by accident, while I was reading about the protest marches that took place later in the 19th century.

‘The characters in this novel are standing on the cusp of change, but change is always slow in coming, and it’s already too late for some of them.’

The Watchman’s Widow follows on from The Ragged Valley, which was set in the context of the Great Sheffield Flood of 1864.

Joanne was inspired to write the book while researching her grandparents’ lives as file cutters in Sheffield’s steel industry before the Second World War.

The second in the trilogy, The Girl at Change Alley, is set in a violent and long-running campaign known as The Outrages, where murder was done in the name of a rogue union leader.

Joanne, was born and bred in Sheffield. She lives in Laxey with her family.

She said it felt ‘bittersweet’ to have completed the trilogy.

The Ragged Valley was Joanne’s first published novel and was published last year, with The Girl at Change Alley following a few months later.

‘What will happen next to Silas, Harriet, Louisa, Rose and Daniel - and Annie and Jem, and even wicked old Albert Boothby?, Joanne said.

‘I like to think that readers who have followed their fortunes will make up their own happy, or unhappy, endings.

‘There could be a reunion sometime in the future, but for now I’m excited to be developing some new stories.

‘I’m enjoying remaining in 19th century Sheffield – naturally, on the page only!’

The Watchman’s Widow is published by Canelo and has a publication date of June 29.

• Joanne will be signing copies at Waterstones, in Douglas, on Saturday, July 1 at 11am.

And she also will be signing copies at Bridge Bookshop, in Ramsey, the following Saturday (July 8), from 11am.