Two women, bound by a child, and a secret that will change everything . . .
London, 1754. Six years after leaving her illegitimate daughter Clara at London’s Foundling Hospital, Bess Bright returns to reclaim the child she has never known. Dreading the worst, that Clara has died in care, she is astonished when she is told she has already claimed her.
Her life is turned upside down as she tries to find out who has taken her little girl – and why. Less than a mile from Bess’s lodgings in the city, in a quiet, gloomy townhouse on the edge of London, a young widow has not left the house in a decade. When her close friend – an ambitious young doctor at the Foundling Hospital – persuades her to hire a nursemaid for her daughter, she is hesitant to welcome someone new into her home and her life.
But her past is threatening to catch up with her and tear her carefully constructed world apart. From the bestselling author of The Familiars comes this captivating story of mothers and daughters, class and power, and love against the greatest of odds . .
What’s so important about bodies anyway?
Is it embarrassing to have sex?
What does it feel like to be in love?
Tell Me collects questions asked anonymously by children, paired with honest, simple answers and cartoons. This is a warm and open conversation starter – for parents and for children, to read together or on their own.
Tell Me is available in hardback for £11.99. Email us to order your order.
Be it as Nicky Hutchinson in Our Friends In The North, Maurice in The A Word, or his reinvention of Doctor Who, one man, in life and death, has accompanied Christopher Eccleston every step of the way – his father Ronnie. In I Love The Bones Of You, Eccleston unveils a vivid portrait of a relationship that has shaped his entire career trajectory, mirroring and defining his own highs and lows, from stage and screen triumph to breakdown, anorexia, self-doubt, and a deep belief in the basic principles of access and equality denied to generations. The actor reveals how his background in Salford, and vision of a person, like millions, denied their true potential, shaped his desire to make drama forever entwined with the marginalised, the oppressed, and the outsider.
Movingly, and in scenes sadly familiar to increasing numbers, Eccleston also describes how the tightening grip of dementia on his father slowly blinded him to his son’s existence, forcing a new and final chapter in their connection, and how `Ronnie Ecc’ still walks alongside him today. Told with trademark honesty and openness, I Love The Bones Of Youis a celebration of those on whom the spotlight so rarely shines, as told by a man who found his voice in its glare. A love letter to one man, and a paean to many.
`My father was an “ordinary man”, which of course means he was extraordinary. I aim to capture him and his impact on my life and career.’ – Christopher Eccleston
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Dear Evan Hansen, Today’s going to be an amazing day and here’s why… When a letter that was never meant to be seen draws high school senior Evan Hansen into the Murphy family’s grief over the loss of their son, he is given the chance of a lifetime: to belong. He just has to stick to a lie he never meant to tell.
That the notoriously troubled Connor Murphy was his secret best friend. Suddenly, Evan isn’t invisible anymore. And Connor’s wealthy parents have taken him in like he was their own, desperate to know more about their enigmatic son from his ‘closest friend’.
As Evan gets pulled deeper into their family, he knows that what he’s doing may not be right, but if he’s helping people, how wrong can it be?No longer tangled in his once-incapacitating anxiety, this new Evan has a purpose. He’s confident. He’s a viral phenomenon.
Every day is amazing. But when everything is in danger of unravelling, he comes face to face with his greatest obstacle: himself. A simple lie leads to complicated truths in this big-hearted coming-of-age story of grief, authenticity and the struggle to belong in an age of instant connectivity and profound isolation.
The new novel from Ruth Hogan, the bestselling author of The Keeper of Lost Things and The Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes – Queenie Malone’s Paradise Hotel is an uplifting novel of mothers and daughters, families and secrets and the astonishing power of friendship.
Tilly was a bright, outgoing little girl who liked playing with ghosts and matches. She loved fizzy drinks, swear words, fish fingers and Catholic churches, but most of all she loved living in Brighton in Queenie Malone’s magnificent Paradise Hotel with its endearing and loving family of misfits – staff and guests alike.
But Tilly’s childhood was shattered when her mother sent her away from the only home she’d ever loved to boarding school with little explanation and no warning. Many years later, Tilda has grown into an independent woman still damaged by her mother’s unaccountable cruelty. Wary of people, her only friend is her dog, Eli.
But when her mother dies, Tilda goes back to Brighton and with the help of her beloved Queenie sets about unravelling the mystery of her exile from The Paradise Hotel, only to discover that her mother was not the woman she thought she knew at all … Mothers and daughters … their story can be complicated …but it can also turn out to have a happy ending.
Available in hardback for £14.99. Click here to order your copy.
