Annie Murray

1915. Margaret and Philip Tallis are happily married, have a thriving business and three children, Daisy, John and Lily. At 20, Daisy is an impassioned, headstrong girl, determined to follow her parents’ footsteps in Birmingham’s jewellery trade. While studying at the college for...

'A heart-warming and affecting tale' – Woman's Weekly Homecoming for the Chocolate Girls is the heartfelt and dramatic conclusion to this gritty family saga about love, war and chocolate. 1946: The war might be over, but for the Gilby family there are still battles to be fought at home...

From Annie Murray, the bestselling author of Chocolate Girls, The Bells of Bournville Green and Secrets of the Chocolate Girls, Wartime for the Chocolate Girls is a gritty family saga about love, war and chocolate . . . April 1941. Almost losing her life in a bomb blast while serving in the...

From Annie Murray, the bestselling author of The Bells of Bournville Green, comes Secrets of the Chocolate Girls, another gritty family saga about love, war and chocolate . . . September 1940, Birmingham. While her husband and daughter work at Cadbury's Bournville factory, Ann Gilby has her...

From a tender age little Evie struggled . . . Evie spent her early years left outside on the step. With a drunk for a father and a neglectful mother, all little Evie has ever craved is a safe home and a normal existence. Her young eyes had seen so much but this never tainted her spirit. If it...

The Second World War has finally come to a close. Birmingham is welcoming home its menfolk, and a new chapter is beginning in Rachel Booker's life. Her husband has returned, and the family that struggled for survival throughout the uncertain war years is now together. But family life settles...

It is 1942, and after a childhood of suffering in Birmingham, Maryann Bartholomew has built a life of happiness and safety with her husband Joel and their children, working the canals on his narrowboat, the Esther Jane. But the back-breaking work and constant childbearing take their toll on...

August 1939. Genie Watkins, a Birmingham kid, would love to have a proper happy family like her Italian friend, Teresa. But Genie hasn't reckoned with the outbreak of war, her already rocky family being split up and the strangely liberating effect it all has on her mother . . . Under Birmingham...

Rachel Booker has a difficult start in life. When her father dies, deep in gambling debt, her mother must harden herself to make ends meet, but becomes so hard she has little room left for affection or warmth. Mother and daughter work at the open market in Birmingham, selling second-hand clothes...

A tale of hardship and social injustice, Miss Purdy's Class by Annie Murray is a heartfelt saga with strong emotional relationships at its heart, read by actress Annie Aldington. In the New Year of 1936, Gwen Purdy, aged twenty-one, leaves her home to become a schoolteacher in a poor area of...

Growing up in Birmingham, Sylvia and Audrey Whitehouse have always been like chalk and cheese. When the Second World War breaks out, Sylvia is still dreaming of her forthcoming marriage to fiancé Ian while Audrey jumps at the career opportunities the WAAF throws her way. Audrey joins the ranks...

Beautiful, dark-haired Lily has been abandoned in a Birmingham slum as a tiny child. With few clues as to her identity she endures a childhood of loneliness and loss. At eighteen she applies for a post as nanny with the family of a Captain Fairford, a soldier in Ambala, north India and his...

Set in the midst of WW2, Soldier Girl follows a woman on her journey of courage, determination, loss, and resilience – the sequel to A Hopscotch Summer from Annie Murray. Read by Penelope Freeman (Her Wartime Secret) Molly Fox has grown up in the back streets of Birmingham at the mercy of her...

In 1984 two young mothers meet at a toddler group in Birmingham. As their friendship grows, they share with each other the difficulties and secrets in their lives: Joanne, a sweet, shy girl, is increasingly afraid of her husband. The lively, promising man she married has become hostile and...

In 1930s Birmingham, in the impoverished district of Nechells, a young girl bravely endeavours to hold her family together in trying times. A Hopscotch Summer is an emotional journey of determination and resilience from Annie Murray. Read by Penelope Freeman (My Daughter, My Mother) Emma Brown...

Shortlisted for Historical Romantic Novel in the Romantic Novelists Association Books Awards Birmingham, almost a decade after the end of the Great War, and the women of Lilac Street have had more than their fair share of troubles . . . Rose Southgate is trapped in a loveless marriage. Shy and...

Pretty seventeen-year-old Greta has never known a stable family life. With no father, and loathing her mother Ruby's latest boyfriend, Greta finds life hard at home and is happiest at work with her friends at the Cadbury factory in Birmingham where she is popular with the boys. Life takes a turn...

1950 - Seven year old Carol Martin lies encased in an iron lung, struck down by the killer disease, polio. Distraught at her side, her mother, Violet, wonders if this is her punishment - for Carol is the love child who should not have been born . . . Family of Women is the story of three...

It is 1946 in Birmingham: the Second World War is over and three young women face a new kind of life. But peacetime brings its own pressures . . . Read by Penelope Freeman (Her Wartime Secret) Katie O'Neill's childhood has been dominated by her temperamental mother and by frightening secrets...

Anna Craven grew up captivated by stories of her mother's childhood in Birmingham and of Kate's friend, Olivia....