22 Britannia Road

22 Britannia Road by Amanda Hodgkinson is a heartbreaking and powerful novel about wartime secrets and the difficulties of adjusting to postwar life 
 
It is 1946 and Silvana and eight-year-old Aurek board a ship that will take them from Poland to England. Silvana has not seen her husband Janusz in six years, but, they are assured, he has made them a home in Ipswich. 
 
However, after living wild in the forests for years, carrying a terrible secret, all Silvana knows is that she and Aurek are survivors. Everything else is lost. While Janusz, a Polish soldier who has criss-crossed Europe during the war, hopes his family will help put his own dark past behind him. 
 
But the war and the years apart will always haunt each of them unless they together confront what they were compelled to do to survive. 
 
 
'The characters are so convincing and the writing's so unshowily accomplished that it soon becomes something gripping. An admirable debut' Daily Mail 
 
'A most accomplished first novel. Powerful story-telling and entirely convincing in its evocation of post-war England. Very good' Penelope Lively 
 
'Keep your Kleenex handy reading 22 Britannia Road' Grazia 
 
'An affecting story, extremely well told' The Times 
 
 
Amanda Hodgkinson was born in Burnham-on-Sea in Somerset and grew up in Essex and Suffolk. 
She currently lives in south-west France with her husband and two daughters. 22 Britannia Road is her first novel.

The characters are so convincing and the writing's  so unshowily accomplished that it soon becomes something gripping. An admirable  debut

A most accomplished first novel. Powerful story-telling and entirely convincing in its evocation of post-war England. Very good

Keep your Kleenex handy reading 22 Britannia Road

Lose yourself in this beautiful tragic tale

A riveting historical novel, set in  post-WWII England, about a Polish couple  reunited after enduring - and committing - crimes of love and  war.

A stark and beautiful book, alive to the compromises, deceptions and passions that traumatic situations can demand from the most circumspect of people

A haunting debut that eschews sensationalism and unfurls with quiet delicacy

Amanda Hodgkinson was born in Burnham-on-Sea in Somerset and grew up in Essex and Suffolk. 
She currently lives in south-west France with her husband and two daughters. This is her first novel.

In war we sometimes lose ourselves . . . 
 
It is 1946 and Silvana and eight-year-old Aurek board a ship that will take them from Poland to England. Silvana has not seen her husband Janusz in six years, but, they are assured, he has made them a home in Ipswich. 
 
However, after living wild in the forests for years, carrying a terrible secret, all Silvana knows is that she and Aurek are survivors. Everything else is lost. While Janusz, a Polish soldier who has criss-crossed Europe during the war, hopes his family will help put his own dark past behind him. 
 
But the war and the years apart will always haunt each of them unless they together confront what they were compelled to do to survive.

Amanda Hodgkinson

Hogkinson's second novel is simply but elegantly written, its subtle charms emerging as her gentle, bittersweet story shows history repeating itself over the generations

This is a story that explores motherhood and sisterhood with great subtlety and power . . . with its strong storytelling, haunting characters and beautiful, supple prose, Hodgkinson's fiction deserves a wider audience

Spilt Milk is a refracted version of real life, that impossible mess we inherit and muddle through, yet transmuted here into something shining and meaningful, told in beautiful prose

Explores love, betrayal and loyalty. Lyrically written and wonderfully convincing, this is a rich and memorable read

A realisation of a rural life . . . a quietly engrossing saga

A potent, moving story of mother and sisterhood

A tale of sisterhood, lies and illegitimate babies

A moving and lyrical story . . . wise, perceptive, warm and heartbreaking, this is a story that lingers long in the mind

1913. Unmarried sisters Nellie and Vivian Marsh live an impoverished existence in a tiny cottage on the banks of the Little River in Suffolk. Their life is quiet and predictable, until a sudden flood throws up a strange fish on their doorstep and a travelling man who will change them forever. 
 
1939. Eighteen year old Birdie Farr is working as a barmaid in the family pub in London. When she realises she is pregnant she turns to her mother Nellie, who asks her sister to arrange an adoption for Birdie's new born daughter. But as the years pass Birdie discovers she cannot escape the Marsh sisters' shadowy past - and her own troubling obsession with finding her lost daughter will have deep consequences for all of them...

Amanda Hodgkinson

Praise for Spilt Milk

Hogkinson's second novel is simply but elegantly written, its subtle charms emerging as her gentle, bittersweet story shows history repeating itself over the generations

This is a story that explores motherhood and sisterhood with great subtlety and power . . . with its strong storytelling, haunting characters and beautiful, supple prose, Hodgkinson's fiction deserves a wider audien ...

Spilt Milk is a refracted version of real life, that impossible mess we inherit and muddle through, yet transmuted here into something shining and meaningful, told in beautiful prose

Hogkinson's second novel is simply but elegantly written, its subtle charms emerging as her gentle, bittersweet story shows history repeating itself over the generations

This is a story that explores motherhood and sisterhood with great subtlety and power . . . with its strong storytelling, haunting characters and beautiful, supple prose, Hodgkinson's fiction deserves a wider audien ...

Spilt Milk is a refracted version of real life, that impossible mess we inherit and muddle through, yet transmuted here into something shining and meaningful, told in beautiful prose

Hogkinson's second novel is simply but elegantly written, its subtle charms emerging as her gentle, bittersweet story shows history repeating itself over the generations

This is a story that explores motherhood and sisterhood with great subtlety and power . . . with its strong storytelling, haunting characters and beautiful, supple prose, Hodgkinson's fiction deserves a wider audien ...

Spilt Milk is a refracted version of real life, that impossible mess we inherit and muddle through, yet transmuted here into something shining and meaningful, told in beautiful prose

Books by Amanda Hodgkinson

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