Nadine Dorries moves into fiction with debut novel The Four Streets

MP's saga of hardship and heartbreak published amid renewed popularity of the genre

The much-maligned saga genre, made famous by Catherine Cookson and focusing on the hard-knock lives of working-class families in the north of England, is set to gain a new proponent this week as MP turned I'm A Celebrity contestant Nadine Dorries publishes her first novel.

The Conservative MP for Mid-Bedfordshire's The Four Streets is set in 1950s Liverpool, in a "tight-knit Irish Catholic community" where "there is almost nothing that a cup of tea and a good chat won't sort out" but where "a betrayal at the very heart" of residents' lives comes to light. Complete with deaths, romances, an irrepressible urchin called Little Paddy and a cameo for a funeral director named Clegg the book was signed by publisher Head of Zeus in a six-figure deal last September involving further sagas from Dorries. Head of Zeus describes the MP as "stunningly talented".

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