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Synopsis

The Sweet Track by Joy, Avril

Lilli and Becca are childhood friends brought together amongst the evocative landscapes of the Somerset Levels. Separated, they become lost to one another as adults.

Returning to the Marsh to care for her dying mother, Lilli begins to hear the echoes of other women’s lives, stories that call to her from the ancient tracks beneath the once flooded land.

Becca sings jazz in London’s pubs and dreams of high tides and seafronts. She finds the way back in her songs but grows thin and pale on a diet of cigarettes and cocaine.

Their parting continues to haunt them and Lilli and Becca’s lives remain shrouded in betrayal and loss. As both women struggle to uncover the truth and resolve their troubled past, their paths converge, opening a new track – of friendship, reconciliation and hope.

…and there's new novelists who are trying to get their work out there, like the talented Avril Joy
— Julia Darling

Avril Joy was born in Burnham-on-Sea and grew up on the Somerset Levels. She studied History of Art at the University of East Anglia before working as a teacher in London and County Durham. After a period in India, she
began to teach at Low Newton women’s prison, on the outskirts of Durham, where she is now Head of Learning and Skills. In 2003 she was awarded a Northern Promise Award by New Writing North. She lives with her partner and has two children

Reviews of The Sweet Track

	28 October 2007
Friends in low places
Reviewer: Jacobs, Emma Publication: Financial Times Magazine
Lilli returns to her childhood home to look after her dying mother... Meanwhile, her stranged childhood friend, Becca, is in London, singing jazz in pubs and consuming cocaine, cigarettes and chocolate... These characters tantalise...Lilli packs in promiscuity and begins to hear the echoes of other women's lives from the marsh, stories that call to her from ancient tracks beneath the once-flooded land. Becca...a frustratingly passive character. She pretends her pregnancy isn't happening, and drinks and smokes throughout it. Finally, the pair end their estrangement, meet up...share some secrets. Jacobs, Emma

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