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    Talk of the Toun
    Talk of the Toun
    Talk of the Toun
    Ebook383 pages5 hours

    Talk of the Toun

    By Helen MacKinven

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    About this ebook

    ‘She was greetin’ again. But there’s no need for Lorraine to be feart, since the first day of primary school, Angela has always been there to mop up her tears and snotters.’

    An uplifting black comedy of love, family life and friendship, Talk of the Toun is a bittersweet coming-of-age tale set in the summer of 1985, in working class, central belt Scotland.

    Lifelong friends Angela and Lorraine are two very different girls, with a growing divide in their aspirations and ambitions putting their friendship under increasing strain.

    Artistically gifted Angela has her sights set on art school, but lassies like Angela, from a small town council scheme, are expected to settle for a nice wee secretarial job at the local factory. Her only ally is her gallus gran, Senga, the pet psychic, who firmly believes that her granddaughter can be whatever she wants.

    Though Lorraine’s ambitions are focused closer to home Angela has plans for her too, and a caravan holiday to Filey with Angela’s family tests the dynamics of their relationship and has lifelong consequences for them both.

    Effortlessly capturing the religious and social intricacies of 1980s Scotland, Talk of the Toun is the perfect mix of pathos and humour as the two girls wrestle with the complications of growing up and exploring who they really are.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThunderPoint Publishing Ltd.
    Release dateOct 29, 2015
    ISBN9781910946046
    Talk of the Toun
    Author

    Helen MacKinven

    Helen MacKinven writes contemporary Scottish fiction, with a particular interest in exploring themes such as social class and identity, using black comedy and featuring Scots dialect. She graduated with merit from Stirling University with an MLitt in Creative Writing in 2012.In her day job Helen MacKinven works with numbers, travelling all over Scotland to deliver teacher training in maths. By night, she plays with words writing short stories and developing ideas for her next novel. Helen's short stories have appeared in a number of anthologies and literary journals, such as Gutter magazine. One of her novels was shortlisted in a UK-wide competition by Hookline Books.Originally from the Falkirk area, Helen now lives in a small rural village in North Lanarkshire with her husband. She has two grown-up sons but has filled her empty nest with two dogs, two pygmy goats and an ever-changing number of chickens.

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      Book preview

      Talk of the Toun - Helen MacKinven

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