Why a Booktrail?
1940s, 2013: On the eve of VE Day, life for one young girl will change for ever.
Secrets and Shadows
What you need to know before your trail
On the eve of VE Day 1945, six-year-old Alexandra Graham is torn from her comfortable life in Scotland, to start a new life with her mother and a strange stepfather in Sheffield. She is young and so is expected to adapt to her new surroundings which she does but when she is 15, she finds that she has long lost family tucked away in Sunderland who she has never seen.
In 2013, a return visit to the city which has changed as much as the people in it. The story of two women following their hearts and realising that running away is not always the answer
Travel Guide
London
She wants to go and study at art college in London. London is attractive as it represents hope in a city where there are no jobs and the lack of any kind of future for youngsters is raw and real. Shipbuilding is declining and taking the communities with it. London is the place to be, the city of dreams and a chance to escape one life and to start the next.
Sheffield
From Scotland to Sheffield then to Sunderland on the trail of the truth
This is a visit back to the olden days where Sheffield was a town of steel works, and fine cutlery but also a town devastated by bombs and war. This is the town where Alexandra starts her new life and this town and all its foibles shaped her. It’s the town which “Hitler made a mess of” and where a family escapes to. In later chapters, the football spirit comes back with a story set around Sheffield United. The author was a student here so the sense of place is realistic.
Sunderland
Most of the novel is set in Sunderland and follows the trail of Alexandra’s lost family. As she arrives in 2013, she looks at the city with fresh eyes and notices that it’s now a city, not a town, that the city . The city was also bombed in the war and is a city of workers and working class. Ship building flourished during this time and people were proud of their heritage but Alexandra faces some real challenges here.
Scotland
There is little mention of Scotland apart from the fact that the fact this was the quiet and peaceful time where the only sign of war was when Sergeant Witton recovers from his wounds in Braeside house in Loch Multyre
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