James Runcie is an award-winning film-maker, playwright and literary curator. He is the author of twelve novels that have been translated into twelve languages, including the seven books in the Grantchester Mysteries series. He has been Artistic Director of the Bath Literature Festival, Head of Literature and Spoken Word at the Southbank Centre, London, and Commissioning Editor for Arts on BBC Radio 4. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He lives in Scotland.
www.jamesruncie.com
www.grantchestermysteries.com
@james_runcie

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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