From Annie Murray, the bestselling author of The Bells of Bournville Green, comes Secrets of the Chocolate Girls, another gritty family saga about love, war and chocolate . . .September 1940, Birmingham.While her husband and daughter work at Cadbury's Bournville factory, Ann Gilby has her hands full at home. Her other daughter, Sheila, has newly returned home with baby Elaine. And, with Sheila's husband away doing his bit in the RAF, Ann k...

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, howev...

**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 . . .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...

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 secr...

Shortlisted for Historical Romantic Novel in the Romantic Novelists Association Books Awards.Birmingham, almost a decade after the end of the Great War, and the women of Lilac Street have had more than their fair share of troubles . . .Rose Southgate is trapped in a loveless marriage. Shy and isolated, she makes the best of life, until she meets a man who changes everything.Jen Green is struggling to make ends meet, with a sick husband and five chil...

'This heartfelt story is perfect for fans of Dilly Court and Katie Flynn' - Candis'Gritty and moving story-telling' - Peterborough TelegraphAnnie Murray's The Pearl Button Girl is book one in the Children of Birmingham series, starting in Victorian Birmingham and following the trials and triumphs of the Fletcher family.Working at the local pearl button factory, Ada Fletcher is doing her be...

In Chocolate Girls, read by actress Frances Barber, three very different women work together at Cadbury's Bournville factory, and their lives become entwined by war and work - and a child called David.Edie, the main character, marries young to escape her unhappy family home. Widowed at nineteen and, after losing 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 ...

Growing up in Birmingham, Sylvia and Audrey Whitehouse have always been like chalk and cheese. When the Second World War breaks out, Sylvia is still dreaming of her forthcoming marriage to fiancé Ian while Audrey jumps at the career opportunities the WAAF throws her way.Audrey joins the ranks at RAF Cardington but soon finds that her new freedom also brings temptation. When she goes too far, the consequences ripple through the Whitehouse family. Meanwhile, Sylvia is doing her bit a...

Set in the midst of WW2, Soldier Girl follows a woman on her journey of courage, determination, loss, and resilience – the sequel to A Hopscotch Summer from Annie Murray.Molly Fox has grown up in the back streets of Birmingham at the mercy of her cruel grandfather and her drunken mother. Haunted by terrible family secrets, she decides to take her life into her own hands and bravely joins the British Army as an ATS girl.The army, seemingly a disaste...

A tale of hardship and social injustice, Miss Purdy's Class by Annie Murray is a heartfelt saga with strong emotional relationships at its heart.In the New Year of 1936, Gwen Purdy, aged twenty-one, leaves her home to become a schoolteacher in a poor area of Birmingham. Her parents are horrified, but she has the support of her fiance, a recently ordained clergyman. Her early weeks in Birmingham are an eye-opener: at the school she faces a class of fifty-two children, some ...

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 ...

A tale of hardship and survival, set between Birmingham and Canada across the 1950s, 60s and 70s, The Doorstep Child is a heart-rending story from the bestselling author of the Chocolate Girls series, Annie Murray.From a tender age little Evie struggled . . .Evie spent her early years left outside on the step. With a drunk for a father and a neglectful mother, all little Evie has ever craved is a safe home and a normal existence.Her young e...