WINNER OF THE RICHARD & JUDY SEARCH FOR A BESTSELLER 2020
Three generations, two secrets, one extended family . . .
Amy is thirty-four and has just given up her glittering career in the big (Welsh) city to move back in with her grandfather, returning to work in the small-town Chinese takeaway where she spent her bookish and boring childhood. Why? That’s a secret she won’t tell.
Just like the secret of why her grandfather, Ah Goong, and her father, TC Li, haven’t spoken to each other in thirty years. Weirder still, they’ve lived in the same small flat about the takeaway for the majority of those years, with Amy’s mother Joan acting as their unfortunate go-between and buffer.
Now Amy’s parents have moved, leaving her in charge of looking after the old man. But then Ah Goong collapses in the street and Amy realises time is running out if she wants to play happy families again . . .
Happy Families by Julie Ma
Julie Ma was born and bred in Wales although she does have to tick Asian-Chinese on those ethnicity forms at the end of questionnaires.
Before her lucky break in winning the WH Smith Richard and Judy Search for a Bestseller competition, Julie was working in a Chinese takeaway in a small Welsh town. And still does.
Prior to that, she tried an eclectic mix of jobs in search of her niche – postal worker, medical secretary, call centre operator. It turned out her niche was not to be Post Master General, Consultant Haematologist or Head of Customer Relationships but to be an observer of ordinary life all around her. With a firm belief that the ordinary can be extraordinary, she tries to turn what she sees into stories worthy of our attention.
Now Julie squeezes writing into the gaps between customer orders and the demands of her housemate – the Lurcher – whose social circle far exceeds hers in spite of being an actual dog.