Annie Murray, author
A detail from the cover of my new book, My Daughter, My Mother.
Newsletter
January 2012
My Daughter, My Mother: OUT MARCH 2nd
My Daughter, My Mother is the story of two young Birmingham women and their mothers. It’s about how the past lives of the mother’s – especially the things they can’t talk about - affect the present and of course their children. But it is also about how the lives of their own daughters might change and affect them. It covers quite a long period, from 1939 up to the mid-eighties, and a great many events from wartime evacuation onwards, but it is rooted in the day to day lives of women – and in this case women bringing up their daughters – and finding that in most cases, secrets will out.
Publication date for this new book is March 2nd – just in time for Mothers' Day!
Papa Georgio… A new story coming soon on Kindle!
"You have to be strong, the way a butterfly is strong…"
Janey Armitage’s father is missing on a climbing expedition on Kanchenjunga in the Himalayas. Her mother Liz decides she must visit the place where he disappeared. Janey, 11 and an only child, refuses to believe he is dead. Janey is dismayed to learn that while her mother is away, she is to go to her grandparents, her eccentric grandfather George Baxter, an antique dealer with a mournful dog, rows of Victorian rat-traps outside his shop, and a new wife Brenda, who has pernickety ways and bat-wing glasses .
George has a plan of his own. Soon Janey is travelling in a caravan to Italy where her grandfather has unfinished business from his wartime years. Janey gets to know her grandfather, who is kind to the grieving girl. He is also prone to introducing all sorts of extras to the journey from stone dogs to naked statues, and taking her off on adventures with a few too many glasses of vino inside him.
On the way they also meet Fizz, a troubled 13 year old boy from Manchester, who does not go to school and is travelling with his mother, stepfather, baby sister and bad-tempered parrot aboard a battered camper van...
As they reach the south of Italy George Baxter begins to share the secrets that have haunted him since the Second World War. But then George sets out with Janey to climb Vesuvius - an adventure which goes dangerously, terrifyingly wrong...
This is a warm-hearted story of adventure, friendship and how family can be created in the most unexpected ways.
To be enjoyed by anyone from age 9 to 90... or so!
Macmillan International!
In Summer 2011 I made a trip to Cameroon with Cameroonian friends and two of my daughters. This outpost of my publisher Macmillan is in the hill town on Bamenda in the north west of Cameroon.
Macmillan Bamenda: Click the image to view full size