Books by Annie Murray

A gritty new Second World War saga from Sunday Times bestselling author Annie Murray, following the lives of the women and girls who worked at the Cadbury Factory in Birmingham.

In Annie Murray's bestselling Chocolate Girls, 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 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 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.

Black Country Orphan is an inspirational story of a young girl's courage, by Annie Murray.

Love, friendship, tragedy and courage under Birmingham's war-torn skies from the Sunday Times top ten bestselling author.

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Bestselling author Annie Murray movingly explores one family's suffering over two generations, and our power to heal from heartbreaking loss.

The second in the Birmingham Jewellery Quarter series by Sunday Times bestselling author Annie Murray.

A powerful and moving story of two sisters, set in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter, by top ten bestseller Annie Murray

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 . . .

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*

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 . . .

From top ten bestselling author, a moving story of one woman's life.

Now the War is Over is a moving story of post-war hardship and the struggles of a reunited family, featuring characters from Annie Murray's bestselling War Babies.The Second World War has finally come to a close. Birmingham is welcoming home its menfolk, and a new chapter is beginning in Rachel Booker's life. Her husband has returned, and the family that struggled for survival throughout the uncertain war years is now together. But family life settles into a routine and Rachel, unsatisfied, starts to yearn for more'Melly, Rachel's eldest daughter, is a child of the war. She grew up in the bombed-out streets of Birmingham and has never known anything other than the hungry ration years and supporting her mother and younger brother Tommy. But times are changing and Melly now has a fresh future ahead of her. She's determined to make the most of life and her greatest wish is to become a nurse.As the gloom of the 1940s passes by and the promise of the 1950s dawns, a whole new world of opportunity opens up to Rachel and Melly - but with this come new challenges and tough choices. They will each have to decide whether their loyalties still lie with the family and friends they clung to throughout the war years or if it's time to move on . . .

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.

The Narrowboat Girl by Annie Murray is the story of a young woman's search for freedom and happiness.Young Maryann Nelson is devastated at the loss of her beloved father. But worse is to come when her mother, Flo, sees an opportunity to better herself and her family in a marriage to the local undertaker, Norman Griffin. Though on the surface a caring family man, Norman is not at all what he seems, as Maryann and her sister Sal soon discover.Unable to turn to their unsympathetic mother for support, the girls are left alone with their harrowing secret. But for Sal it is too much to bear . . . The chance of a new life opens up for Maryann when she befriends Joel Bartholomew. Aboard his narrowboat, the Esther Jane, she finds herself falling in love with life on the canal as she is swept away from Birmingham and all her worries. Until Joel's feelings for Maryann begin to change, awakening all the old nightmares that she had thought were long buried, and in panic and confusion she takes flight . . . The Narrowboat Girl is followed by sequel, Water Gypsies.

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 children to support. Aggie, her eldest daughter, is twelve years old and longs for excitement. But prying into the adult world shows her more than she had bargained for.And Phyllis Taylor is a widow who has managed to put a dark and traumatic past behind her. But the return of her daughter Dolly threatens all that . . .These women find strength in friendship, as they discover that the best way to solve their problems is to face them together, in Annie Murray's compelling The Women of Lilac Street.

It is 1942, and after a childhood of suffering in Birmingham, Maryann Bartholomew has built a life of happiness and safety with her husband Joel and their children, working the canals on his narrowboat, the Esther Jane. But the back-breaking work and constant childbearing take their toll on Maryann, and the tragic loss of her old friend Nancy, followed by a further pregnancy lead her to a desperate act which nearly costs her her life.The walls of her security are broken down when Joel suffers an accident, and to keep the boats working, Maryann is forced to allow Sylvia and Dot, two wartime volunteers, into the privacy of their life. And when she discovers that someone keeps calling for her at Birmingham's Tyseley Wharf, the dark memories of her past begin to overwhelm her life. For that someone, who seems to be watching her every move, is becoming more dangerous that even she could imagine . . . Sequel to The Narrowboat Girl, Water Gypsies by Annie Murray is the gripping story of life on the Birmingham canals.

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.

It is 1946: the war is over and three young women face a new kind of life. But peacetime brings its own pressures . . .Katie O'Neill's childhood has been dominated by her temperamental mother and by frightening secrets that she barely understands. Innocent, yet hungry for love, she is easily taken in by male charm and is left outcast and alone with her young son.Emma Brown has spent the war at home in Birmingham, longing for her husband Norm to return and meet the son he has never seen. But she soon finds that the joy of homecoming only brings a whole new set of problems.And Molly Fox, after a sad and brutal childhood, found a place to belong during the war, in the women's army, the ATS. Now, the women are no longer wanted and Molly finds peacetime a bleak, difficult challenge. Finding work in guesthouses and holiday camps, she keeps running from herself, in search of a place she can call home.All the Days of Our Lives by Annie Murray is the story of three girls who first met in a Birmingham classroom in the 1930s, each facing life with all its joys, sorrows and surprises.

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 . . .