The Silk Factory

(Paperback)

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A beautiful and eerie story of love and memory from the author of The Moon Field.
Anyone whos ever lost someone is haunted

Rosie Milford inherits a house in an old silk factory after her mothers death and moves there with her young children. The discovery of a shocking truth about her own childhood, when she is already reeling from the breakup of her marriage, fills her with distrust and fearfulness. Then she starts seeing a strange child, wandering in the garden, who seems as lost as she is.

In 1812, silk master Septimus Fowler has grand plans to keep his factory in step with the industrial revolution: he will plant mulberry trees, rear silkworms and import new mechanized looms. Orphan Beulah Fiddement works as a bobbin winder and has secrets that the master would go to any lengths to get. Caught up in a dark adult world of illicit love, rebellion and revenge, Beulah must put away her childhood and draw on all her spirit to protect those she loves.

Beulahs story of guilt and bravery will echo down two centuries and change Rosies life as she struggles to overcome the hand of her own past and find redemption.

Reviews

There is so much to love about The Silk Factory an utterly compelling story, a fascinating setting, characters you care about deeply. Judith Allnatt is a wonderfully warm and empathic writer, with a real feeling for the thread of the uncanny that runs through our lives Margaret Leroy author of The Soldiers Wife

'Fascinating and tender Catharine Arnold, author of Globe: Life in Shakespeare's London

Praise for The Moon Field:

Genuinely and deeply moving THE TIMES

Deeply engaging and unsentimentalreally memorable CHARLES PALLISER, author of The Quincunx

Praise for The Poets Wife:

Allnatt gives her an affecting, beautifully written afterlife
THE TIMES

'This is a beautifully written, poignant novel, lyrically descriptive of the landscape, detailed in the country life of the time and reminiscent of the gentle style of the genius peasant poet'
CHOICE MAGAZINE

Praise for A Mile of River:

'A novel of rare insight, exquisitely written. A standing ovation for this debut Michael Morpurgo

'ExcellentThe writing is restrained but powerful and the description of that remorseless heat is masterful
NEW BOOKS MAGAZINE

Author Bio

Judith Allnatt is an acclaimed short story writer and novelist. Her first novel, A Mile of River, was a Radio Five Live Book of the Month and was shortlisted for the Portico Prize for Literature; her second novel, The Poets Wife, was shortlisted for the East Midlands Book Award. Her short stories have featured in the Bridport Prize Anthology, the Commonwealth Short Story Awards and on BBC Radio 4. She lives with her family in Northamptonshire.