Palace of Strange Girls - SALLIE DAY

I-SPY AT THE SEASIDE Hello, children! Welcome to your very own I-Spy Book. In these pages you`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 `I-Spy` book and avoiding her mother Ruth`s eagle-eyed supervision. Her sixteen-year-old sister Helen, meanwhile, has befriended a waitress whose fun-loving ways hint at a life beyond Ruth`s strict rules. But times are changing. As foreman of the local cotton mill, Ruth`s husband Jack is caught between unions and owners whose cost-cutting measures threaten an entire way of life. And his job isn`t the only thing at risk. When a letter arrives from Crete, a secret re-emerges from the rubble of Jack`s wartime past that could destroy his marriage. As Helen is tempted outside the safe confines of her mother`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.