GIRL WITH SECRETS
Thursday 1st December
CHRISTMAS CHILD
Saturday 10th December
CHRISTMAS TO COME
Tuesday 20th December
GIRL WITH SECRETS
1938 East London
Nine year old Daisy Purbright is a country girl at heart. Together with beloved brother Bobby, they’ve enjoyed the endless freedoms of rural England. But when her entrepreneur father gambles the family’s fortunes on a speculative investment in London’s docklands, little does he realise the catastrophic mistake he is making. As the Purbrights attempt to settle to a new life in the East End, the whisperings of war grow louder. Then, one late afternoon in September 1940, Adolf Hitler conducts a paralysing bombardment on London. Life changes dramatically and closely guarded secrets begin to threaten the Purbrights’ happiness. As war tightens its grip on the country, can Daisy stay loyal to her friends and family during one of the most fateful events of the 20th century?
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1880 Christmas Day, London
Snow falls … a dying Irish girl clutching her new-born baby drags herself to the sanctuary of an East End orphanage and throws herself on the mercy of the Sisters of Clemency. The nuns raise little Ettie O’Reilly as their own and provide her with the love and education she might never have had. But the lives of the nuns and orphans are soon crushed by the greed of a powerful bishop.
The heart-breaking outcome separates Ettie from her friends and family and when the boy who has promised her his undying love and loyalty betrays her, Ettie’s world starts to crumble.
Ettie must finally accept the hard-hitting truth - happiness comes at a high price! Does she have the wisdom to face the demons she learned about from the Sisters of Clemency? And will the resolution of an undiscovered secret be her making - or breaking?
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CHRISTMAS TO COME
1941 THE BLITZ IS SLOWLY DEMOLISHING THE EAST END OF LONDON.
Fatalities mount daily from the bombings. FamilIes are torn apart and evacuation seems the only answer for the capital’s besieged East End. Those who remain behind are the most vulnerable to the Luftwaffe’s nightly assaults. Amongst these are street kids Bella Doyle and her younger brother, Terry. Forced to scavenge for food on the bombed sites, surviving on what they can find in the debris. The fear of returning to the abuse they receive in the derelict cottage they once called home, is as nightmarishly real as the devastation of the high explosive bombs that have already destroyed one third of London.
Bella knows that if they take shelter in the cottage, Terry’s life is at risk. She would give her own to save him from the attention of their drunkard mother’s boyfriend, but either way, it’s the German metal rain that will devour them or Jack Router’s brutal abuse.
There is only one way out as far as Bella is concerned; help from the young gangster Micky Bryant, who befriends street kids to work for his black market enterprise. Micky, at least, can offer an alternative to their miserable existence. But what price will Bella have to pay for their safety in these most uncertain and treacherous of times?
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