The Silk Factory

By: Judith Allnatt

Narrated by: Antonia Beamish

Length: 12 hrs and 52 mins

Publisher's summary

The story of a young mother who discovers old buried secrets as she goes through her mother's things, all whilst staying in a cottage that centuries before was a silk factory. A beautiful, eerie story of love and memory.

If you try to pick up the pieces, sometimes that's when they fall into place. When young mother Rosie gets the news that her mother has died she decides to leave London and head back to her home village. Carefully picking through her mother's things, she tries not to frighten the children with her tears. Then one piece of paper stops her in her tracks, setting in motion a reawakening of memories long forgotten.

But when Rosie starts to see things, strange things, she believes the stress must be getting to her at last.

In the same village two centuries earlier, Effie, Beulah, and Tobias struggle to survive. As Beulah and Tobias's wages from the silk factory are docked again, Effie wonders how she will keep them out of the workhouse. Just as Beulah starts getting under the skin of the cruel factory master, Effie's heart is captured by young a soldier in a fine red coat. And when he swears to dress her in the very silk her brother and sister make, she hopes the promise might change their lives forever.

The thread that weaves these two stories together is as strong as the foundation of the cottage that has seen these very lives pass through it. The Silk Factory is a story of love, loss, and how the memories that haunt us can also bind us together.

©2015 Judith Allnatt (P)2015 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Critic reviews

"Genuinely and deeply moving" (The Times)
"Deeply engaging and unsentimental…really memorable" (Charles Palliser, author of The Quincunx)
Praise for The Poet's 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)
"Excellent…The writing is restrained but powerful and the description of that remorseless heat is masterful" (New Books Magazine)