THE city of Birmingham may not now be much-loved saga writer
Annie Murray’s home territory but its people, its streets and its fascinating
past have become an integral part of both her life and her writing.
It’s nearly 30 years since Murray (pictured below) captured readers’ hearts
with Birmingham Rose, her first Birmingham-based novel, and now she’s back with
The Pearl Button Girl, the first of a gritty new Children of Birmingham series which
opens in 1851 and follows the trials and triumphs of the Fletcher family.
Working at a pearl button factory, Ada Fletcher – eldest child of Richie and May Fletcher – is doing her best to make ends meet in trying times. When tragedy strikes and her four younger siblings, Elsie, Dora, John, and Mabs, are taken to a workhouse orphanage, Ada is saved from a similar fate by neighbour Sarah Connell.
Taking her chances in the teeming industrial city, Ada is determined to be more than just a factory girl. But as well as her quest for work, Ada is desperate to reunite with her sisters and brother and embarks on a journey to track them down.
But will she be able to find her long-lost family as well as a
home and life to call her own?
Murray, whose home was in Birmingham when she began her writing career, invests hours of local research and her own powerful gift of imagination into her action-packed, family-based stories, and her genuine affection for the city and its people always shines through in her powerfully authentic sagas.
And this hard-hitting and yet warm-hearted new series packs
in all those ingredients – close family bonds, romance, drama, human emotions
and the struggles and uncertainties of life amidst the hardships of an
industrial city – which make her stories such a treat for all saga fans.
(Pan, paperback, £8.99)
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