The Pearl Button Girl

Author/Guide: Annie Murray

Why a Booktrail?

1880s: Can Ava ever have the life she wants?

ISBN: 978-1035019977
Genre: Historical, Sagas

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What you need to know before your trail

Working at the local pearl button factory, Ada Fletcher is doing her best to make ends meet in trying times.

When tragedy strikes and her siblings are taken to a workhouse orphanage, Ada is saved from a similar fate by her neighbour, Sarah Connell.

But the roof over Ada’s head doesn’t come without a price: the Connells have too many children and not enough money, and Sarah’s reliance on drink means that it isn’t long before Ada needs to escape.

Determined to be more than just a factory girl, Ada embarks on a journey to reunite with her siblings. But in a teeming industrial city, will she be able to find long-lost family as well as a home and life to call her own?

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Travel Guide

Birmingham and the Pearl Button trade

The author says:

“My stories are never just about one industry or subject . However, for this book, I was inspired by The Birmingham Pearlies, a history of George Hook & Company and the pearl shell industry. There is a romance to the sacks of shells that would arrive from oceans across the world: snail, trochus, abalone, oyster and black Tahiti… The processes of sawing them, cutting blanks and fashioning them on lathes is also fascinating. And mother of pearl was made into cutlery handles, inlay for wooden boxes and jewellery.”