Box of Tricks by Jeff Phelps
It's the early 1960s and summer is starting, with the Beatles playing in New Brighton's Tower Ballroom. While young Eddie's parents are away, he has to help out at his Auntie Vi's seaside boarding house. Here he shares a room with cousin Ray, a teddy boy who breaks his mother's heart with his charm and fecklessness. Soon Ray is showing Eddie the local highlights: the amusement arcades, the parties and the girls - funded by his resourcefulness with Vi's purse. Meanwhile the house is taken over by the Rodcoopers, a flamboyant troupe of theatricals playing a season of Gilbert & Sullivan. Leading man Charles is very fond of Vi, and offers a chance of an unlikely new life in London. Eddie only has eyes for one guest. Julia is bored, precocious, with dreams of becoming a model - and she can twist Eddie round her little finger. As Ray runs into trouble with the police, Eddie and Julia become involved in the sinister joke-shop Box of Tricks, with its under-the-counter packages, and Eddie learns more about the needs of others than he bargained for.
I was hookedIt is a nostalgic 1960s seaside tale with a set of endearing characters in a coming of age story that drew me straight in -- Sarah Broadhurst * Bookseller *
Seaside theatricals in all their seedy, flamboyant, innocent and heartbreaking glory * Robert Edric *
Jeff Phelps has caught the moment when the uptight spirit of the Fifties gives way to the hedonistic Sixties * Gaynor Arnold *
A wonderful, extremely original novel that manages to be achingly funny and touchingly sad - as well as rather sinister. I loved every minute * Maureen Lee *
With deceptive simplicity and skilful storytelling, Jeff Phelps takes us into the evocative world of the seaside of the early 1960s * Clare Morrall *
Seaside theatricals in all their seedy, flamboyant, innocent and heartbreaking glory * Robert Edric *
Jeff Phelps has caught the moment when the uptight spirit of the Fifties gives way to the hedonistic Sixties * Gaynor Arnold *
A wonderful, extremely original novel that manages to be achingly funny and touchingly sad - as well as rather sinister. I loved every minute * Maureen Lee *
With deceptive simplicity and skilful storytelling, Jeff Phelps takes us into the evocative world of the seaside of the early 1960s * Clare Morrall *
JEFF PHELPS was born in a seaside town on Merseyside. His stories and poetry have been widely published, and he won the Mail on Sunday novel completion in 1991. He's married with two grown-up children, and works as an architect in Wolverhampton.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780955647697 |
| ISBN 10 | 095564769X |
| Title | Box of Tricks |
| Author | Jeff Phelps |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Profile Books Ltd |
| Year published | 2009-07-01 |
| Number of pages | 336 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |