Showing results for "Queenie" in Literary Fiction

Tilly was a bright, outgoing little girl who liked playing with ghosts and matches. She loved fizzy drinks, swear words, fish fingers and Catholic churches, but most of all she loved living in Brighton in Queenie Malone's magnificent Paradise Hotel, with its endearing and loving family of misfits - staff and guests alike. But Tilly's childhood was shattered when her mother sent her away from the only home she'd ever loved to boarding school with little explanation and no warning. Now, Tilda has grown into an independent woman still damaged by her mother's unaccountable cruelty.

Set in 1960s New York, this piquant coming-of-age story concerns a teenage girl, Queenie, raised to become a "kept woman" in an exceedingly comfortable and well-adjusted - yet insular and retrograde - household. After enrolling in college, Queenie confronts new understandings, both personal and political, and gradually becomes cognizant of the dated values imparted upon her.

Rachel Joyce captured the hearts of millions with her best-selling debut novel, which told the moving tale of an ordinary man, Harold Fry, who embarks on an epic journey to deliver a message and save a life. But Harold’s story began its life on radio, in the award-winning play which opens this collection: To Be a Pilgrim, starring Anton Lesser, Anna Massey and Niamh Cusack.