DEBBIE TAYLOR

When Helen Gloag storms out of her father's cottage and heads for the coast , her plan is simple: an escape from Scotland, a pleasant sea voyage, a new start in the American Colonies. Yet what begins as an adolescent rebellion quickly turns into the stuff of nightmares. The grueling poverty and despe ration Helen had hoped to escape by leaving home is magnified ten-fold in t he hold of the ship, where illness and starvation run rampant. Then one day , Helen makes a startling and useful discovery about the gross stratificati on of society: while she and the other passengers wrestle for scraps in the squalid pestilence of the ship's belly, the captain's silk-clad guests enj oy claret and crumpets above-deck. The germ of a resolution takes hold in H elen's mind. She will do whatever it takes to become a proper lady, with go rgeous clothes and sumptuous food, soft hands and idle days. Helen has no i dea just how soon her wish will come true—and what a bizarre and devastatin g price she will pay for it.

Cuando la pelirroja Helen es secuestrada por unos piratas y vendida como esclava, su vida cambia radicalmente: en el harén descubre nuevas sensaciones, y también que ser la favorita del sultán entraña un verdadero peligro de muerte. Exotismo, amor torrido e intrigas cortesanas en una historia muy atractiva que habla del contraste de civilizaciones, de la capacidad de adaptacion del ser humano y de la lucha por el poder.

Set in a Tyneside fishing village, Herring Girl moves effortlessly between 1898 and 2007 as twelve-year-old Ben finds himself the unlikely conduit for Annie, a herring girl who lived and died a century earlier. As Ben tries to unravel the puzzle of Annies death, he is drawn irresistibly into her long-vanished world.Bringing the startling story of Annies life and curious death vividly to life, this brilliantly realised historical mystery introduces a cast of unforgettable characters, and reveals how the secrets of our past are never too far away.

Debbie Taylor, novelista y viajera, nos retrata a siete extraordinarias mujeres con las que convivió durante siete días: Jomuna en la India, Amal en Egipto, Helen en Australia, Lydia en Uganda, María en Brasil, Meg en Escocia y Hua en China; todas ellas con el denominador comun de ser madre solas. A traves de estas siete historias la autora logra mostrarnos una vision general de la situacion de miles de familias: las familias monoparentales de madre, que suponen ya un cuarto de las familias del mundo.