Not All Tarts Are Apple
A perfectly feel-good comic saga from the East End
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
A wonderfully warm and charming London saga, set in the Soho of the 1950s. If you like Donna Douglas and Nancy Revell, you'll love this!
"She brings the East End to life..." - Barbara Windsor
"A poignant story with a strong authentic backdrop..."-Woman & Home
"I enjoyed this book so much and would recommend it to anyone..." -- ***** Reader review
"Great fun to read, amusing..." -- ***** Reader review
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WINNER OF THE HARRY BOWLING PRIZE FOR FICTION.
WHAT IF EVERYTHING YOU KNEW COULD BE TAKEN FROM YOU IN A FLASH?
Rosie has always lived with her eagle-eyed Auntie Maggie and Uncle Bert in their café in Soho, often visited by her mother - the mysterious, and often drunk, Perfumed Lady. Yet, her mother's family - landed gentry who hail from a country estate near Bath - are desperate to get their hands on Sophie and will stop at nothing - even kidnap- to get her...
Will Rosie have to leave the Soho and the neighbours she knows and loves - Great Aunt Dodie, Madame Zelda and Paulette, Sharky, Maltese Joe and the Campini Family who run the delicatessen in Old Compton Street - for good?
Rosie's story continues in The Widow Ginger.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
During Queen Elizabeth's coronation summer of 1953, Rosie, a seven-year-old waif living above an Old Compton Street caf with the owners (a couple she calls Auntie Maggie and Uncle Bert), learns something about her unknown parentage in this captivating first novel. Granger, a native of London's bohemian Soho district, celebrates London low life a Dickensian rogues' gallery of pimps, prostitutes, con men, thieves and shady lawyers through the engaging voice of her endearing young heroine. "It's Edward VIII, miss," Rosie tells her teacher, eager to contribute to a class discussion about the new queen's family. "He was having it off with that Simpson woman, my auntie Maggie said so. Terrible it was. She was a divorced woman, miss, and still married to Mr. Simpson." As she talks of her school friends and neighbors, of a train trip, a beach holiday, a visit to a posh house as well as excursions closer to home, Rosie paints an earthy and entertaining picture of England a half-century ago. A high-speed chase, a kidnapping and blackmail provide the action, while the mysterious Perfumed Lady, the tart of the tale, supplies the tension. Readers expecting a conventional crime caper may be disappointed, but anyone who appreciates fine storytelling will eagerly await further word from Rosie in the sequel, The Widow Ginger, due next year. FYI: Not All Tarts Are Apple won Britain's Harry Bowling Prize for fiction.
