The Sewing Factory Girls is Posy Lovell’s heartwarming and moving novel inspired by the brave, hardworking women who fought to improve working conditions at the Singer Factory in Clydebank. It is an uplifting and emotional novel of friendship and courage, for readers who enjoy fiction based on real life stories.

Like half of all the young women living in Clydebank in early 1911, Ellen works at the Sewing Machine factory. So does her big sister, Bridget, Bridget’s fiancé Malcolm, and her new friend Sadie, who has recently come back home after the death of her father to help her mum look after her siblings.

For Sadie, the factory is a way to make ends meet. But Ellen has sewing in her veins. She sings in the factory choir, helps organise the gala days and is even making Bridget’s wedding dress on her beloved sewing machine. But after the excitement of the wedding dies down, things take a turn for the worse. Ellen discovers that the work of the cabinet polishers – her job – is to be reorganised, and they will be doing more work for less pay.

Ellen feels like it is a betrayal – the sewing factory is her family and they’ve let her down. Sadie is more pragmatic. But she tells Ellen about trade unions and how at the factory she worked in before, there was a strike. And Ellen gets an idea…

The events of the strike will throw Ellen, Bridget and Sadie’s lives into turmoil but also bring these women closer to each other than they could ever have imagined.

The Sewing Factory Girls will be published on 13th June by @orionbooks. Here is the fab cover to tempt you:

Many thanks to @Tr4cyF3nt0n for inviting me to be part of the cover reveal.

About the Author

Posy Lovell is a pseudonym for British author and journalist Kerry Barrett. Born in Edinburgh, she moved to London as a child with her family. She has a passion for uncovering the role of women in the past. She lives in London with her family and is the author of The Kew Gardens Girls.