The Palace of Strange Girls - Softcover

Day, Sallie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0446545864 ISBN 13: 9780446545860

Publisher: Grand Central Pub, 2009

Synopsis

Blackpool, England, 1959. The Singleton family is on holiday. For seven-year-old Beth, just out of the hospital, this means struggling to fill in her 'I-Spy' book and avoiding her mother Ruth's eagle-eyed supervision. Her sixteen-year-old sister Helen, meanwhile, has befriended a waitress whose fun-loving ways hint at a life beyond Ruth's strict rules.

But times are changing. As foreman of the local cotton mill, Ruth's husband, Jack, is caught between unions and owners whose cost-cutting measures threaten an entire way of life. And his job isn't the only thing at risk. When a letter arrives from Crete, a secret re-emerges from the rubble of Jack's wartime past that could destroy his marriage.

As Helen is tempted outside the safe confines of her mother's stern edicts with dramatic consequences, an unexpected encounter inspires Beth to forge her own path. Over the holiday week, all four Singletons must struggle to find their place in the shifting world of promenade amusements, illicit sex, and stilted afternoon teas in this touching and evocative novel.

About this title

Review:

'Panoramic portrait of an English family in the 1950s...charming.’ Gloss Magazine

'This might just be the most delightful book you read this year: it's heroine, seven-year-old Beth Singleton, is charm itself.' Easy Living

'It is cleverly crafted work, effortlessly moving between grand design and minute detail and using both humour and pathos to stunning effect.'. New Books

From the Back Cover:

England, 1959, is teetering on the edge of massive social change. While their friends tackle the Costa Brava for the first time, the Singleton family head off for their week in Blackpool - a holiday shadowed by mistrust, uncertainty and doubt.

Jack, mill foreman, is hiding a war-time secret that threatens to destroy his marriage.

Ruth, iron-willed matriarch and strict guardian, is faced with the realisation that her family is growing apart.

Helen, a restless teenager struggling under her mother's rules, has made a new friend her parents disapprove of - with good reason.

And seven-year-old Beth, just out of hospital, is learning to forge her own path - after a chance meeting with Tiger Woman from the Palace of Strange Girls ...

About this edition

• Publisher: Grand Central Pub
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0446545864
• ISBN 13: 9780446545860
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 344