Chocolate Girls Series

From Annie Murray, the bestselling author of The Bells of Bournville Green, comes Secrets of the Chocolate Girls, another gritty family saga about love, war and chocolate . . . September 1940, Birmingham. While her husband and daughter work at Cadbury's Bournville factory, Ann Gilby has her hands full at home. Her other daughter, Sheila, has newly returned home with baby Elaine. And, with Sheila's husband away doing his bit in the RAF, Ann knows she should be grateful to have all her children safe under one roof. But she can't help but fear for their uncertain future, as bombs fall ever closer to her Birmingham home. Part of her yearns for the carefree days of her youth when she too worked the line at Cadbury's, filling trays of chocolate shells. But mostly Ann tries not to think of the past at all, since that would mean she would have to confront her oldest secret. A secret that she has kept since the last war, and the one that could easily rip her family apart . . . Readers love Secrets of the Chocolate Girls: 'So good that I couldn’t put the book down' 'I loved all the characters with such a lot of research blended in' 'Annie Murray gets all her facts correct . . . I know because I worked there' 'Another great book by Annie Murray'

From Annie Murray, the bestselling author of Chocolate Girls, The Bells of Bournville Green and Secrets of the Chocolate Girls, Wartime for the Chocolate Girls is a gritty family saga about love, war and chocolate . . . April 1941. Almost losing her life in a bomb blast while serving in the Women's Volunteer Service has made Ann Gilby take stock of what's really important - her family. With daughter Sheila back home, and Joy still working munitions at the Cadbury factory and engaged to her soldier sweetheart, home life feels more settled too. Ann has even come to an uneasy truce with her husband, Len, despite her recent discovery of his infidelity and the fact that he has fathered a child with another woman. But what Ann has not reckoned with is Marianne, Len’s other woman, turning up on her doorstep - a woman with a mysterious past. Only Ann has secrets of her own and one day soon she knows she will have to tell her youngest child, Martin, who his father really is . . .

'A heart-warming and affecting tale.' - Woman's Weekly 1946: The war might be over, but for the Gilby family there are still battles to be fought at home . . . For Birmingham and the Gilby family the war years have been a time of great change. With husband Len having left her for another woman, Ann Gilby is finally free to follow her heart. While the neighbours may be scandalized by having a divorcee in their midst, Ann is determined to rise above the local gossip and make a happy home with her former sweetheart, the father of Ann’s youngest child. Daughters Joy and Sheila are lucky enough to have their menfolk back home, but Joy’s husband has returned a broken man from his experiences in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. And Sheila’s husband is finding his wartime adventures and travels have made Birmingham feel small by comparison. Then there’s Anne’s youngest child, Martin, who is still coming to terms with learning who his real father is, as well as having secrets of his own . . . From Annie Murray, the bestselling author of Secrets of the Chocolate Girls and Wartime for the Chocolate Girls: Homecoming for the Chocolate Girls is the heartfelt and dramatic conclusion to this gritty family saga about love, war and chocolate . . . 'A portrait of four generations of a Birmingham family as they struggle to rebuild their lives in the aftermath of World War Two. With intimately drawn characters grappling with emotional dramas, this is a writer at the top of her game.' - Joanna Toye, author of The Shop Girls

Pretty seventeen-year-old Greta has never known a stable family life. With no father, and loathing her mother Ruby's latest boyfriend, Greta finds life hard at home and is happiest at work with her friends at the Cadbury factory in Birmingham where she is popular with the boys. Life takes a turn for the worse when her missing vixen of a sister Marleen turns up during the freezing winter of 1962. Greta soon decides that her only way out is marriage, but all too soon she discovers that life with her old class mate Trevor is not a ticket to freedom and happiness. She finds herself on the streets, pregnant and homeless . . . She is taken in by her mother's old friends, Edie and Anatoli Gruschov. In Anatoli, Greta finds the father she has never had. Kindly Edie loves to mother people and is desperately missing her son David and his family who have settled in Israel. But the love and security of this haven is soon shattered by appalling tragedy, which affects all the chocolate girls and their children and changes life forever . . . Continuing the saga begun in Annie Murray's Chocolate Girls, and set in 1960s Birmingham, The Bells of Bournville Green is a story of families whose lives are entwined, of belonging and loss . . . and of a young woman's search for transforming love read by Annie Aldington.