In James Mitchell's latest novel, Leading Lady, the central character is struggling to make sense of her life in 1930s' Newcastle. It charts the troubled history of Jane Whitcombe, whose story began in A Woman to be Loved and continued in An Impossible Woman. She's rich, beautiful and loved by wealthy banker Charles Lovell, but she is concerned and distressed about her dead fiance's home town of Felston. She travels with Charles to Hollywood and then on to Mexico, where he secures a contract to build a destroyer for the Mexican government — a contract that might just save Felston from ruin.
On their return to England, Jane and Charles marry, but she soon finds other causes to fight for and finds herself in Spain helping the casualties of the civil war. Charles is appalled by her behaviour and Jane doesn't know whether he will ever forgive her.
Jane's struggle for a better and meaningful existence is something that James understands all too well. He, like his fictional character, strove for excellence in the face of unfortunate circumstances and won. "If you ever give in," he says, "you're dead," — later adding that his attitude is what his parents taught him. His father was a fitter who became a union man and eventually the mayor of South Shields, James's home town, in 1940.