{"title":"Blackwater Press","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9781735774794","title":"The Girl with Twenty Fingers","description":"Sarah's hope of becoming a concert pianist was shattered when she bombed an important performance of a Mozart concerto. Now in Munich, she feels like an imposter in her job as a food magazine editor. A chance encounter in a music shop leads to a surprising friendship with an elderly widower with a unique grand piano. When they start meeting to play Mozart's works for four hands, Sarah unravels the mysteries of his war-time past, uproots a musical secret in her own family - and finds the strength to redirect her own future.  Laced with melodies from Mozart and Schumann to Toto and Nena, The Girl with Twenty Fingers will delight readers, while asking the question: Can music change lives? Kate Mueser's debut novel cracks open notions of failure and second chances, living to the fullest and dying without regrets, and cultural identity and privilege, making it both timeless and urgently relevant to our age.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56303888597365,"sku":"9781735774794","price":15.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781735774794_12a1a2d6-8780-48c1-ab01-5feafc995aaa.jpg?v=1786024808"},{"product_id":"9798987718148","title":"Symbiosis","description":"\u003cbr\u003eBinding: Paperback \/ softback","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56311332831605,"sku":"9798987718148","price":15.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9798987718148_ceef08ef-70c1-48c6-b274-35a6ad2b6430.jpg?v=1786033302"},{"product_id":"9798987718162","title":"Catch the Moments As They Fly","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eCatch the Moments As They Fly\u003c\/i\u003e is a vividly realised portrait of class, love, and womanhood in mid-twentieth century Scotland, told in Strachan's subtle and delicate prose.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA radiant example of historical fiction.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOn Nicola Sturgeon's list of Best Books of 2023.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSpanning the 1930s to the 1960s, CATCH THE MOMENTS AS THEY FLY is a vividly realised portrait of class, ambition and womanhood in a rapidly changing Scotland. Told in Strachan's subtle and delicate prose, it tells the story of Rena--ambitious, attractive, and determined to see her family escape their shameful past. A new town offers a chance at the respectability and independence she craves, but is it enough? When she marries Bobby Young--charming, cosmopolitan and haunted by his own memories--doors begin to open for the couple. Together, they could make their mark on the world--or lose everything they have.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePre- and post-war Scotland are brought to life in this radiant example of historical fiction Fiction.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56311333028213,"sku":"9798987718162","price":17.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9798987718162_b577aa8f-b85a-4faa-929f-01f47b9154f1.jpg?v=1786033304"},{"product_id":"ma-chere-maman-mon-cher-enfant","title":"Ma Chère Maman - Mon Cher Enfant","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn August 1914, concert violinist Lucien Durosoir was on holiday with his mother Louise in Brittany, when the world changed, and he was called up. Swapping his instrument for a rifle, he was at the front a week later.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eMa Chè re Maman – Mon Cher Enfant\u003c\/i\u003e is the first-ever English translation of the letters of Lucien and Louise Durosoir.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis collection provides a unique first-hand perspective on World War I. From his gruesome time in the trenches, watching as his comrades were killed beside him, to his transfer to a musical unit and work as a pigeon keeper with the composer André Caplet, Lucien wrote to his mother nearly every day, and she responded. The letters are rich with descriptions of conditions and battles, daily life at the front and Paris, music, and maternal guidance. They offer an intimate peek into the complicated relationship of two determined individuals.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57487951528309,"sku":"9781735774770","price":23.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781735774770.jpg?v=1786355175"},{"product_id":"disciple","title":"Disciple","description":"\u003cp\u003eCloaked in mystery, Anton Seidl materialized in the New World as Wagner's personal emissary. A sorcerer, he commanded musical New York and toured widely, everywhere received with awed deference. In Brooklyn, Laura Langford's Seidl Society presented summertime Seidl concerts on Coney Island fourteen times weekly. Working women arrived in special railroad cars; Black orphans were regaled with roast chicken, ice cream, and the Tannhauser March. A clairvoyant theosophist, Langford identified Seidl as a \"chela\" and traced the ceremonies of Parsifal to the Himalayas. Seidl's appeal was uncanny; at the American premiere of Tristan und Isolde, women stood on their chairs and \"screamed their delight.\" At his funeral, women clasped elbows to force their way into the mobbed Metropolitan Opera House, a spectacle of chaos. His Manhattan friends-including Antonin Dvorak, whose New World Symphony he premiered-were legion. And yet Seidl remained a man apart, afflicted with secret sorrows.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57492391231861,"sku":"9781963614152","price":15.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781963614152.jpg?v=1786529230"},{"product_id":"while-dragging-our-hearts-behind-us","title":"While Dragging Our Hearts Behind Us","description":"\u003cp\u003eAs the aftermath of the Easter Rising descends into disaster, 17-year-old James becomes swept up in the intensity of Irish Nationalism. His carefree youth evaporates as he finds himself quietly drawn into the Cork No.1 Brigade, C Company, eventually responsible for taking on the Black and Tans in the centre of Cork City. As the only full-time member of the six -person Intelligence Squad and the 12-person Active Service Unit of Cork No. 1, James becomes deeply involved in the fight for Irish freedom. Working under the fierce leadership of Rebel Cork sets his life on a trajectory that he could never have imagined, and like many of his friends, did not expect to survive.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe anecdotes he shared with his granddaughter in his old age, hair-raising anecdotes of his life and activities, as well as the lives and activities of some of his closest friends and compatriots during the War of Independence and the Civil War, have been carefully researched and are the foundation of this story.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57495518314869,"sku":"9798988615828","price":23.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9798988615828.jpg?v=1786618183"},{"product_id":"the-wounded-me","title":"The Wounded Me","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhen the child he is supposed to capture is unlike anything he has ever seen – or been trained to expect – Peter must decide whether to go back empty handed or to accept Jamie’s pleas and take a chance on the fascinating yet unfathomable ‘bird child’. A perilous journey awaits the unusual trio who must rush away from the outskirts of the feared town of Belua and elude its inhabitants across an ancient forest and up remote mountains, or risk being spotted and hunt by them. Will the journey help them discover more about the bird child? Will they be welcomed back into HomeVillage, where the true brothers expect a familiar captured child just like them? Will the bird child finish breaking the close bond that used to exist between Peter and Jamie? A literary and haunting novel which explores our captivation with charismatic leaders and our discomfort with difference. Borrowing the central characters from Hugo Simberg’s cryptic painting The Wounded Angel and mobilising them in an allegorical tale inspired by the Venezuelan crisis and diaspora, this story of adventure, brotherhood and desperation asks: why do we follow our leaders and what are we willing to do to belong?\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57680000188789,"sku":"9781963614138","price":15.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781963614138.jpg?v=1792422853"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/publisher-blackwater-press.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}