Lavender Road - Softcover

Carey, Helen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1999741633 ISBN 13: 9781999741631

Publisher: Cambria Books, 2017

Synopsis

September 1939

As the nation braces itself for war, the residents of Lavender Road are dealing with troubles of their own.

With her husband in jail, Joyce Carter is never sure where her family's next meal will come from. And her troublesome daughter, Jen, isn't helping matters by refusing to work until she achieves her dream of becoming an actress.

Pam Nelson is struggling to deny the distance growing between her and her husband - which isn't helped by her secret attraction to their handsome new lodger. And unfortunately Pam isn't the only one to fall for his seductive charm...

As the threat of a German invasion looms, the lives of the women on this south London street are about to change for ever...

About this title

From the Author

When I was asked to write a novel set in the second world war, the publishers (Orion) originally wanted it set in the East End of London, but I had just moved to Clapham and I asked if I could set the story there. I had already noticed the number of newish houses built into the old Victorian terraced streets - a sign of the relentless bombing, and I wanted to try to recreate the atmosphere of wartime Clapham as a kind of tribute to the 'ordinary' people who lived and died during through those eventful, traumatic years.
I wanted to show how local people were affected by events in the wider world, in particular how the old social structures changed and how women suddenly and unexpectedly found themselves facing new challenges and opportunities. But my overriding aim was to make the books engaging and fun to read and for that I needed lively, compelling characters.
One of the key characters in Lavender Road is Jen Carter who came to me after an interview with the wonderful actress and singer, Mary Morland, already well in her eighties, who had blazed a trail on the London variety stage all through the war and for many years afterwards too. I wanted Jen's fantasy of becoming an actress, as a means of escaping from the family she despises, to make a nice contrast with the desperate efforts of her careworn mother to keep food on the family table. In the end Joyce, Jen's mother, actually became one of my favourite characters, I so much enjoyed creating her tentative relationship with the 'rich' Mrs Rutherford in the large house overlooking the common, and best of all is when she finally gives the ghastly Stanley (her violent, feckless husband) his come-uppance - but you have to wait for Some Sunny Day for that ...

About the Author

Helen Carey is best known for her popular Lavender Road series, which is set in South London during the Second World War. The Lavender Road novels include LAVENDER ROAD, SOME SUNNY DAY, ON A WING AND A PRAYER, LONDON CALLING and THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STREET. Helen started writing about the war when she met a neighbour at a bus stop in London who pointed out where the air-raid shelters used to be on Clapham Common. That sparked an interest in the Second World War, especially for lesser known details, which now appear in Helen's spell-binding novels. Having lived in London, Germany, Switzerland and the West Indies, Helen now lives in Newport, Pembrokeshire, on a small coastal farm which she and her husband run as a conservation project. She is also a prize winning artist and has made a gallery out of a converted goat shed. As well as painting and writing she teaches Creative Writing at various universities and currently has a Royal Literary Fund fellowship at Aberystwyth University.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambria Books
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1999741633
• ISBN 13: 9781999741631
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 336