Our Lizzie

Lizzie Kershaw is an independent spirit. At twelve she loses her father and her happy family life ends as her mother grows to resent her. Then circumstances push Lizzie into an early marriage, where she finds her mother's petty cruelties replaced by her husband's frequent beatings.

But she is a survivor. When World War I breaks out, Lizzie husband is forced to join up and she seizes the opportunity to run away. She finds independence and friendship in a munitions factory - plus the promise of a new love. But as war ends, the shadow of her husband looms again. Can she break free of him and find happiness?

This is a vivid and engrossing tale of endurance, set in Lancashire from 1909 - 1914. Anna Jacobs has once again created characters so real you laugh and weep with them - and you will never forget Our Lizzie.

This is the cover of the US version of 'Our Lizzie'. I think I've been very lucky with covers recently. I love the impressionistic elegance of this turn of the century street scene and I hope US readers enjoy Lizzie's story as much as UK readers have. It was so successful that I wrote three more books about the Kershaw Sisters, Our Polly, Our Eva and Our Mary Ann.

Our Lizzie was published by Hodder and Stoughton and came out in hardback, paperback, large print, audiobook and now ebook formats. The paperback is intermittently being reprinted and if you can't find a copy, order it from your local bookshop and keep reordering till it reappears.

ANNA'S NOTES

This is the book which got me fascinated by the part women played on the home front in World War I. I read Sylvia Pankhurst's book 'The Home Front' and the 'Virago Book of Women and the Great War' and found conflicting accounts of how women were treated in munitions factories. In the end I went with the memoirs of a woman who actually worked in one, which Pankhurt didn't. I went on from this series to start writing about Lady Bingram's Aides, mentioned in 'Our Mary Ann', and produced 'Tomorrow's Promises' and 'Yesterday's Girl'. I hope to write more in the latter series. So many ideas, so little time!

Buy from  Amazon UK or from The Book Depository which doesn't charge postage to most parts of the world.