Carol Birch Book order

A ghost novel set in a girls' school in 1960s Manchester. Amidst the resurgence of ghost stories and superstition among the girls, a tragedy is about to occur, one that will send Sally more and more down an uncanny rabbit hole...

Did you hear? Big landslip over by Ercol. Last night. The road into Gully's closed off. They found a body. Got police tape. All that stuff. They only do that for murder, don't they? Murder! A body has been uncovered in a mudslide just outside the village of Andwiston. In the pub they talk of murder, but Dan sometime mechanic, constant drunk is finding it hard to sift through his jumbled memories. Watching him from the dark is Lorna, a lost soul living in the woods, haunted by ghosts and a vision from her childhood: a cold boy standing alone in Gallinger's field. Fusing the ghost story with sharp, psychological insight, this brilliant, timely novel about loneliness, buried secrets and the havoc they play on the mind, cements Carol Birch as one of our most important literary writers.

Strange and beautiful . . . Captures the lost world of carnivals and smoky backstreet theatres with hallucinatory vividness The Times

Following the acclaim of LITTLE SISTER, Carol Birch has drawn on one of the world's oldest dilemmas to create a poignant love story about a woman torn between love for her husband and lust for another man

Jaffy Brown is running through the London backstreets when he comes face to face with the escaped circus animal. His life is transformed by the encounter. Plucked from the jaws of death by Mr Jamrach, the two strike up a friendship. Before he knows it, Jaffy finds himself on board a ship bound for the South Seas.

A convict colony in New South Wales, Australia is the setting for Carol Birch's new novel, based on real events. Now out in paperback, Birch proves once again that she is 'a born storyteller' TIMES

Effective communication hinges on the storyteller's deep understanding of the narrative. Carol Birch, an experienced storyteller and educator, emphasizes the importance of knowing a story intimately to engage an audience. She contrasts the passive act of reading with the vibrant experience of oral storytelling, providing guided imagery exercises to help readers connect with the story's essence. Birch's engaging prose encourages readers to embrace a dynamic approach to storytelling, ensuring they convey characters and settings authentically. The book also includes notes and a bibliography for further exploration.

Gorton, Manchester. 1930. Greyhound racing at Belle Vue, the buses going up and down Hyde Road, the siren of Peacock's foundry going off every night at six. This is Bessie and Sam Holloway's place, home for Nell and little brother Bobby and older step-child Violet. Precious visits from Dad's sister Benny, a Queen of the music hall trailing clouds of glory and whisky, provide infrequent brushes with glamour. 'Alright for some,' grunts Bessie. Nell grows up to work in a factory and there, from the tailgate of a truck in the yard, she first hears fellow factory worker Harry Caplin play trombone break on the old jazz classic, Clarinet Marmalade. Harry's talent will take him far and introduce him to such jazz legends as Louis Armstrong and Jack Teagarden; but not as far as poor feckless Bobby, who finds himself fighting in the jungles of Malaya. Spanning the twentieth century, this is a poignant story about a brother and a sister and three generations of a northern working-class family.

Cathy Wren, aged 37, lives alone in a small town, surviving on waitressing and piano teaching. Nursing her quiet, drab life, she keeps memories of her tumultuous past at bay—until one stray remnant of that old life knocks on her front door. Suddenly, Cathy is thrown into a weird and haphazard journey that turns into much more than a search for the little sister she hasn't seen for 10 years. This is a remarkable novel about life and death, fact and fiction, desire, envy, families, and forgiveness.