Download or read book The Bells of Bournville Green written by Annie Murray and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2010-11-30 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Continuing the saga begun in Annie Murray’s Chocolate Girls, and set in 1960s Birmingham, The Bells of Bournville Green is a story of families whose lives are entwined, of belonging and loss . . . and of a young woman’s search for transforming love. Pretty seventeen-year-old Greta has never known a stable family life. With no father, and loathing her mother Ruby’s latest boyfriend, Greta finds life hard at home and is happiest at work with her friends at the Cadbury factory in Birmingham, where she is popular with the boys. Life takes a turn for the worse when her missing vixen of a sister Marleen turns up during the freezing winter of 1962. Greta soon decides that her only way out is marriage, but all too soon she discovers that life with her old classmate Trevor is not a ticket to freedom and happiness. She finds herself on the streets, pregnant and homeless . . . She is taken in by her mother’s old friends, Edie and Anatoli Gruschov. In Anatoli, Greta finds the father she has never had. Kindly Edie loves to mother people and is desperately missing her son David and his family, who have settled in Israel. But the love and security of this haven is soon shattered by appalling tragedy, which affects all the chocolate girls and their children and changes life forever . . . The next novel in Annie Murray's gritty family saga is Secrets of the Chocolate Girls

Download or read book The Bells Of Bournville Green Special Sa written by Annie Murray and published by . This book was released on 2009-09-01 with total page 503 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Chocolate Girls written by Annie Murray and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2010-11-30 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Annie Murray’s bestselling Chocolate Girls, three very different women work together at Cadbury’s Bournville factory, where their lives become entwined by war and work – and a child called David. Edie marries young to escape her unhappy family home. Widowed at nineteen, and having lost her child from the marriage, she faces the war grieving and lonely. Then one night during the Blitz, an infant mysteriously abandoned during the bombing is handed into her care . . . Ruby, meanwhile, doesn’t want to be left behind in the wedding stakes, and settles for marriage with Frank. Finally there’s Janet, kind-hearted and susceptible to male charm, who is hurt desperately by an affair with a married man. David, the child who steals Edie’s heart as she brings him up through a time none of them will ever forget, is the love of all their lives. And when David is old enough to wonder who he really is, he leads Edie through struggle and heartache to a life and love she would never have dreamed of . . . Chocolate Girls is followed by the captivating sequel, The Bells of Bournville Green.

Download or read book My Daughter My Mother written by Annie Murray and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2012-03-01 with total page 463 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1984 two young mothers meet at a toddler group in Birmingham. As their friendship grows, they share with each other the difficulties and secrets in their lives: Joanne, a sweet, shy girl, is increasingly afraid of her husband. The lively, promising man she married has become hostile and violent and she is too ashamed to tell anyone. When her mother, Margaret is suddenly rushed into hospital, the bewildered family find that there are things about their mother of which they had no idea. Margaret was evacuated from Birmingham as a child and has spent years avoiding the pain of her childhood - but finds that you can't run from the past forever. Sooky, kind and good-natured, has already been through one disastrous marriage and is back at home living with her parents. But being 'disgraced' is not easy. Her mother, Meena, refuses to speak to Sooky. At first her silence seems like a punishment, but Sooky gradually realizes it contains emotions which are far more complicated and that her mother may need her help. Meena has spent twenty years trying to fit in with life in Birmingham, and to deal with the conflicts within her between east and west, old ways and new. My Daughter, My Mother by bestselling saga author Annie Murray, is the story of two young women discovering the heartbreak of their mothers' lives, and of how mothers create daughters - and learn from them.

Download or read book Secrets of the Chocolate Girls written by Annie Murray and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2022-07-12 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: September 1940, Birmingham. While her husband and daughter work at the Cadbury’s Bournville factory, Ann Gilby has her hands full at home with her youngest child Martin and her other daughter, Sheila, newly returned home with baby Elaine. With Sheila’s husband away doing his bit in the RAF, Ann knows she should be grateful to have all her children safe under one roof. But as bombs fall ever-closer to her Birmingham home, she can’t help but fear for their uncertain future. Part of her yearns for the carefree days of her youth when she also worked the line at Cadburys, filling trays of chocolate shells. But mostly Ann tries not to think of the past at all, since that would mean she would have to confront her oldest secret – one she’s kept since the last war, and that could easily rip her family apart . . . From the bestselling author of Chocolate Girls and The Bells of Bournville Green comes another gritty family saga about love, war and chocolate . . .

Download or read book Birmingham Rose written by Annie Murray and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2011-03-25 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A heartfelt Birmingham saga, Birmingham Rose is Annie Murray's debut novel and was a Sunday Times bestseller. Life is bleak for Rose Lucas, a spirited, intelligent girl, born into a large family in the slums of pre-war Birmingham. But her friendship with Diana, daughter of a vicar from middle-class Moseley, gives her hope. She learns to aspire to a different kind of existence, vowing never to become a child-bearing drudge like her mother. Life, however, never follows the way of dreams. After a childhood marked by tragedy, Rose eventually finds and loses the love for which she has striven so hard. From Italy, where she has travelled during the Second World War, she is forced to return to Birmingham and an unhappy marriage, her hopes and illusions shattered. But Rose will not be defeated and she, too, is determined to rise once again above the devastation of her life . . .

Download or read book Across the Mersey written by Annie Groves and published by HarperCollins UK. This book was released on 2008-09-04 with total page 16 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of ‘The Grafton Girls’ comes the story of one Liverpool family preparing for the onslaught of World War Two, while trying not to fight among themselves.

Download or read book Kate Olivia written by Annie Murray and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Sisters of Gold written by Annie Murray and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2018-02-08 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sisters of Gold is an emotional and heart-warming story with a richly imagined Birmingham setting, from Annie Murray, author of The Doorstep Child. Sisters Margaret and Annie lost their mother years ago, they long for her every day. Their protective and devout father keeps the girls close. But he can’t protect them all the time . . . When a scandal rocks this family unit to their core, the girls are forced to leave their home under a shadow of secrecy. The girls arrive in the Birmingham’s famous jewellery quarter one stifling August evening to stay with their uncle, goldsmith Ebenezer Watts. Annie takes up work at a nearby factory, but it’s not the work that interests her. Her kind and soft nature, means that her attention is drawn to the immediate need of her impoverished colleagues and the wretched lives they lead. Meanwhile, Ebenezer employs Margaret as a chain maker. When Margaret meets silversmith Philipp Tallis, she is drawn to him instantly. Margaret is forced closer to this mysterious man in the cramped workshop, as they create objects of beauty. But what is it the Sisters of Gold are hiding? Even though they’ve escaped their past once, it can’t stay hidden forever . . .

Download or read book Birmingham Blitz written by Annie Murray and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2011-05-13 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An unmissable and much-loved favourite, Birmingham Blitz by Annie Murray is the tale of everyday courage and determination in wartime Britain. August 1939. Genie Watkins, a Birmingham kid, would love to have a proper happy family like her Italian friend, Teresa. But Genie hasn't reckoned with the outbreak of war, her already rocky family being split up and the strangely liberating effect it all has on her mother . . . Under Birmingham skies darkened by blackout Genie shares her fears and hopes with Teresa, keeps her spirits up with her nan and glamorous auntie Lil, and tries to hold her family together. And amid it all, she discovers love . . .

Download or read book Birmingham Friends written by Annie Murray and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2011-03-18 with total page 568 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A remarkable, stirring novel, Birmingham Friends perfectly captures the complicated intimacy of female relationships. Anna has always been exceptionally close to her mother, Kate and as a child, was captivated by the stories her mother would tell of her childhood in Birmingham with her best friend, Olivia. Olivia and Kate seemed to have a magical friendship. But when Kate dies, she leaves her daughter a final story, one that this time tells the whole truth of her life with Olivia Kemp. As Anna reads, she is shocked to discover how little she really knew about the mother she felt so close to. With Kate's words of caution ringing in her head, she goes in search of the one woman who can answer urgent questions about her mother's life, and about her own . . . *Birmingham Friends was originally published as Kate and Olivia*

Download or read book War Babies written by Annie Murray and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2015-04-09 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rachel Booker has a difficult start in life. When her father dies, deep in gambling debt, her mother must harden herself to make ends meet, but becomes so hard she has little room left for affection or warmth. Mother and daughter work at the open market in Birmingham, selling second-hand clothes or whatever they can find just to put a little food on the table. But the market has a silver lining: it's there that Rachel makes her first childhood friend, Danny. As they grow older, the friendship grows into something more and their innocent romance gives Rachel the care and comfort she's always craved. But at just sixteen, as World War II breaks out, Rachel falls pregnant. They marry in haste but it isn't long before Danny is called up. Left on the home front with a new baby and little else, Rachel must scrape by with the other residents of Sparkbrook. But if Danny ever makes it home, will he be the same boy she loved so fiercely? And if Rachel can sustain the family until then, will she end up as hard-hearted as her own mother? Annie Murray's War Babies is a moving and insightful novel about hardships on the home front and how the war changed everybody it touched . . .

Download or read book Soldier Girl written by Annie Murray and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2010-05-14 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Solider Girl is a sequel to A Hopscotch Summer and is followed by All the Days of Our Lives in Annie Murray's epic saga of friendship and heartbreak. Molly Fox has grown up in the back streets of Birmingham at the mercy of her cruel grandfather and her drunken mother. Though she has grown into a tall, beautiful woman, Molly is haunted by terrible family secrets. When she is found lying drunk in a gutter, Molly reaches a turning point. She decides to escape by joining the army as an ATS girl. At first her new start seems fated to be a disaster but the army gives her the encouragement she hungers for and soon her life is flourishing. But war brings tragedy as well as triumph, and when Molly receives news from home, it becomes clear that she can't escape her past so easily . . .

Download or read book Family of Women written by Annie Murray and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2010-12-17 with total page 478 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1950 - Seven year old Carol Martin lies encased in an iron lung, struck down by the killer disease, polio. Distraught at her side, her mother, Violet, wonders if this is her punishment - for Carol is the love child who should not have been born . . . Family of Women is the story of three generations of women: Bessie: scarred by a childhood of poverty in the slums of Victorian Birmingham and left a young widow with four children, is a hard, bullying woman who will go to disturbing lengths to keep her family under her thumb. Violet: one of Bessie's four children, marries young to escape, into the arms of a man whose life will be broken by war. Linda: grows up on a large housing estate in the 1950s with older sister Joyce and her beloved young sister Carol. Intelligent and energetic, she craves education and something more than the life she sees around her. Torn from her longed for place at the grammar school, she gives up hoping for anything better. It takes a tragic love affair to make her question the limitations of her life and the secrets which haunt her family. Spanning more than half of the last century, Family of Women by Annie Murray is a story of one family - and of the joys, struggles and changes in women's lives.

Download or read book Wartime for the Chocolate Girls written by Annie Murray and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2023-04-13 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: April 1941. Almost losing her life in a bomb blast while serving in the Women's Volunteer Service has made Ann Gilby take stock of what's really important - her family. With daughter Sheila back home, and Joy still working munitions at the Cadbury factory and engaged to her soldier sweetheart, home life feels more settled too. Ann has even come to an uneasy truce with her husband, Len, despite her recent discovery of his infidelity and the fact that he has fathered a child with another woman. But what Ann has not reckoned with is Marianne, Len’s other woman, turning up on her doorstep - a woman with a mysterious past. Only Ann has secrets of her own and one day soon she knows she will have to tell her youngest child, Martin, who his father really is . . . From Annie Murray, the bestselling author of Chocolate Girls, The Bells of Bournville Green and Secrets of the Chocolate Girls, Wartime for the Chocolate Girls is a gritty family saga about love, war and chocolate . . .

Download or read book Secrets of the Chocolate Girls written by Annie Murray and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2022-04-14 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Annie Murray, the bestselling author of The Chocolate Girls and The Bells of Bournville Green, comes another gritty family saga about love, war and chocolate . . . September 1940, Birmingham. While her husband and daughter work at the Cadbury's Bournville factory, Ann Gilby has her hands full at home with her youngest Martin and other daughter, Sheila newly returned home with baby Elaine. With Sheila's husband away doing his bit in the RAF, Ann knows she should be grateful to have all her children safe under one roof. But she can't help but fear for their uncertain future as bombs fall ever closer to her Birmingham home. Part of her yearns for the carefree days of her youth when she also worked the line at Cadburys, filling trays of chocolate shells. But mostly Ann tries not to think of the past at all since that would mean she would have to confront her oldest secret, one she's kept since the last war and the one that could easily rip her family apart . . .

Download or read book Christmas Fireside Stories written by Margaret Dickinson and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2014-11-06 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christmas Fireside Stories is a delightful festive collection of short stories that includes delicious Christmas recipes recommended by the authors as well as extracts from your favourite saga novels. Christmas at Briar Farm by Diane Allen Christmas preparations are in full swing at Briar farm as the Bainbridge family get ready for a traditional 1960s Christmas – with all the trimmings. Kate's Miracle by Rita Bradshaw It's Christmas 1919 and things are looking bleak for Kate and her two small children in the north of England. That is until Kate discovers the strength of friendship and community at Christmas time . . . The Gift by Margaret Dickinson Christmas Eve, 1914. A moment of hope unites soldiers on both sides of the firing line as the spirit of Christmas crosses even the divides of war, and an act of generosity changes one man's life forever. Christmas at Thalstead Halt by Annie Murray At Thalstead Halt, the station master has the unexpected task of sheltering snow bound passengers in the run up to Christmas 1886. And the eclectic mix of travellers bring more than one surprise with them . . . You'll Never Know Just How Much I Love You by Pam Weaver Christmas, 1943. The post office at Goring-on-Sea is surrounded by a heavy blanket of winter snow but nothing can stop the last post, or the power of true love at Christmas time. A Wounded Christmas by Mary Wood Can friendship, humour and a Boxing Day party help to ease the sorrows of 1942? A heart-warming story featuring characters from the saga novel Proud of You.