Hear the Echo - Two Strong Welsh-italian Women... Separated by a Lifetime, Linked Forever

Author: Rob Gittins

ISBN: 9781784615239

Publication Date: 28 June 2018

Publisher: Y Lolfa, Tal-y-bont

Format: Paperback, 195x130 mm, 384 pages

Language: English

♥ English Book of the Month: September 2018

The stories of two strong Welsh-Italian women in a small Valleys community, one living in the 1930s and one in the present day. Seemingly very different characters, Chiara faces problems as a new immigrant, while Frankie battles loan sharks and a good-for-nothing husband. But as events play out, their lives reveal unexpected echoes of each other.

The following has been provided by the Publisher:

Author Biography:

Rob Gittins is an award-winning screenwriter who has written for most of the UK’s top-rated television drama series of the past twenty years – including EastEnders, The Bill, Heartbeat and Casualty. In 2015 he received an Outstanding Achievement Award in recognition of his work as EastEnders' longest-serving writer.

Further Information:

In the 1930s, Chiara decides to emigrate from Italy to forge a new and better life in Wales. She works in an Italian café in a close-knit mining town in the Valleys, encountering religious bigotry, xenophobia, and hardship as she and her boss battle to make a success of their new life. But at the heart of their endeavour is a love triangle which threatens to destroy everything they have.

Meanwhile present-day Welsh-Italian Frankie struggles to find the money and hope to hold her family together in the same Valleys community. With her husband letting her down at every turn, she faces tough decisions about exactly how far she’s prepared to go to keep the wolf from the door, and whether what she has is actually worth fighting for.

Though they’re living in very different time periods and situations, the two women’s diaries reveal unexpected commonalities, not least of which is their strength and determination to face down whatever life throws at them and carve out something better for themselves and those they love.