Hazel Prior Book order

At eighty-seven, Veronica McCreedy, the first Penguin Ambassador, embodies resilience as she embarks on a mission to save the threatened local Sea Life Centre alongside her assistant Eileen and ten-year-old penguin enthusiast Daisy. Their adventure, fueled by Darjeeling tea and finger sandwiches, transforms into an epic fundraising walk that challenges their perspectives and leads them toward new beginnings. This heartwarming tale highlights themes of determination, friendship, and the impact of caring for the environment.

Meet the heroine everyone's talking about . . . Fiercely resilient and impeccably dressed, Veronica McCreedy has lived an incredible 87 years. Most of them alone, in her huge house by the sea. But Veronica has recently discovered a late-life love for family and friendship, adventure and wildlife. More specifically, a love for penguins! And so when she's invited to co- present a wildlife documentary, far away in the southern hemisphere, she jumps at the chance. Even though it will put her in the spotlight, just when she thought she would soon fade into the wings. Perhaps it's never too late to shine?

AS HEARD ON THE BBC RADIO 2 BOOK CLUB'This year's Eleanor Oliphant . today Veronica is going to make a decision that will change all of this. Readers are falling in love with Away with the Penguins:'Without a doubt the most delightful, joyous and uplifting book I've read so far this year .

Dan Hollis lives alone, in a remote barn hidden in the woods on Exmoor. He leads a simple life and takes great pleasure in the small things, he counts the toadstools he finds on his morning walk, he cuts his sandwiches into triangles and arranges them geometrically on his plate, he spends his days in the workshop at the bottom of the seventeen-step staircase. For the past twenty-three years he has been making harps, choosing beautifully coloured local wood, carving and shaping it by hand, and adding his unique 'signature': a specially-chosen pebble that he sits in the wood. He enjoys his solitary, quiet routine. Then, one day, Exmoor housewife Ellie Jacobs stumbles across the barn by chance as she's walking in the woods. She's utterly stunned by the discovery of the enchanting workshop, and Dan (taken by her surprise - and her cherry-coloured socks) gives her the gift of a beautiful cherry wood harp. But Ellie's controlling husband Clive refuses to let her keep it, and so she begins to take lessons in secret at the barn