Narrowboat Girl [Unabridged] [Paperback]

Annie Murray (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 22, 2001

This is an absorbing tale of adventure and true love. Young Maryann Nelson is devastated at the loss of her beloved father. But worse is to come when her mother, Flo, sees an opportunity to better herself and her family in a marriage to the local undertaker, Norman Griffin. Though on the surface a caring family man, Norman is not at all what he seems, as Maryann and her sister Sal soon discover. Unable to turn to their unsympathetic mother for support, the girls are left alone with their harrowing secret. But for Sal, it is too much to bear...The chance of a new life opens up for Maryann when she befriends Joel Bartholomew. Aboard his narrowboat, the Esther Jane, she finds herself falling in love with life on the canal as she is swept away from Birmingham and all her worries. Until Joel's feelings for Maryann begin to change, awakening all the old nightmares that she had thought were long buried, and in panic and confusion she takes flight...

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Annie Murray was born in 1961 in Berkshire, and graduated from St John's College, Oxford. In 1991 she won a SHE-Granada short story competition and was taken on by a literary agent. Her first novel, BIRMINGHAM ROSE was published in 1995. This has been followed by several other bestselling Birmingham sagas including, most recently, CHOCOLATE GIRLS and WATER GYPSIES. She lives in Reading with her husband and four children.

From AudioFile

Maryann Nelson has the kind of childhood that nightmares are made of. Her stepfather is a pedophile, who abuses both Maryann and her older sister, Sal. Their mother doesn't believe them, and when Sal runs away, Maryann is left to deal with her stepfather alone. Finally, she escapes to the "cut'--the canal system that carries goods throughout England. There she meets Joel, who takes care of her, that is, until his brotherly feelings change. Annie Aldington manages to imbue her reading of this novel with both desperation and dread. Her thick Birmingham accent depicts the sad life that surrounds this poverty-stricken family. When Maryann goes into service in a posh house, Aldington varies the voices with ease. It's interesting how one accent can convey poverty while another, wealth. Here Aldington uses both to tell the story. B.H.B. © AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 300 pages
• Publisher: Pan Macmillan; Unabridged edition (June 22, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0330396285
• ISBN-13: 978-0330396288
• Product Dimensions: 4.4 x 1.1 x 7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,269,948 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful, November 17, 2009

By 

Duckyfish (Mesa, Arizona) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Narrowboat Girl (Paperback)

Thw Narrowboat girl is a wonderful story richly detailed. The story itself sounds depressing when reading the synopsis, but when you are reading it you become totally engrossed in the warm characters and the unhappy life of this young girl in a poor area of England. As she grows up her struggles continue but her life does improve. I am British, so found it easy to read but the author often writes in abbreviated slang terms (the northern dialect of England) which may be confusing for the American reader.