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The Palace of Strange Girls

By (author) Sallie Day

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I-SPY AT THE SEASIDE Hello, children! Welcome to your very own I-Spy Book. In these pages youâ€™ll be able to look for all kinds of secret, exciting things that are found only by the sea. Blackpool, 1959. The Singleton family is on holiday. For seven-year-old Beth, just out of hospital, this means struggling to fill in her â€˜I-Spyâ€™ book and avoiding her mother Ruthâ€™s eagle-eyed supervision. Her sixteen-year-old sister Helen, meanwhile, has befriended a waitress whose fun-loving ways hint at a life beyond Ruthâ€™s strict rules. But times are changing. As foreman of the local cotton mill, Ruthâ€™s husband Jack is caught between unions and owners whose cost-cutting measures threaten an entire way of life. And his job isnâ€™t the only thing at risk. When a letter arrives from Crete, a secret re-emerges from the rubble of Jackâ€™s wartime past that could destroy his marriage. As Helen is tempted outside the safe confines of her motherâ€™s stern edicts, with dramatic consequences, an unexpected encounter inspires Beth to forge her own path. Over the holiday week, all four Singletons must struggle to find their place in a shifting world of promenade amusements, illicit sex and stilted afternoon teas, in this touching and extraordinarily evocative novel.