Canvey Island

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''Runcie has captured the truth about love ... he is the simple chronicler of English post-war life, using irony and understatement to lay bare the pathos of ordinary lives ... Beautifully done'' - Sunday Telegraph

''A tender, intimate account of post-war England which left me both wistful and elated ... So engaging, so well-shaped and so unsparingly, generously truthful'' - Jim Crace
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A moving family saga and wonderfully rich portrait of post-war Britain

It is 1953 in Canvey Island. Len and Violet are at a dance. Violet''s husband George sits and watches them sway and glide across the dance floor, his mind far away, trapped by a war that ended nearly ten years ago. Meanwhile, at home, a storm rages and Len''s wife Lily and his young son Martin fight for their lives in the raging black torrent. The night ends in a tragedy that will reverberate through their lives.

This poignant novel follows the family''s fortunes from the austerity of the post-war years to Churchill''s funeral, from Greenham Common to the onset of Thatcherism and beyond, eloquently capturing the very essence of a transforming England in the decades after the war. It is a triumph of understated emotion, a novel about growing up and growing old, about love, hope and reconciliation.
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''Runcie''s third novel is a funny, epic, moving story of Thameside folk ... a beautifully observed, tragi-comic work'' - What''s On

''Runcie writes with an excellent feeling for time and place, and, above all, the intensity of ordinary lives'' - Choice