About the Author

Melanie McGrath was born near Romford, Essex. Her books include, Motel Nirvana, which won the 1996 John Llewelyn Rhys/Mail on Sunday award for the Best New British and Commonwealth Writer under thirty-five, Hard Soft and Wet, the bestselling memoir Silvertown and, most recently, The Long Exile: A True Story of Deception and Survival Amongst the Inuit of the Canadian Arctic. Hopping, the sequel to Silvertown, will be published by Fourth Estate in early 2008.

She writes for the Guardian, Independent, The Times, Evening Standard and Condé Nast Traveller. She is a regular broadcaster on radio, and has been a television producer and presenter. She lives and works in London.

Reviews

'One of the book's strengths lies in its evocative details…Most of all, though, this is a story of ordinary people living through the extraordinary period of two world wars, bearing the hardship with fortitude, and longing for those brief moments when they could escape.' Sunday Times ‘“Hopping” is a book of astonishing empathy, eloquence and understanding. It needs to be read slowly and carefully, as the dense network of love affairs and relations fills the equally tightly knitted net of East End streets before the Blitz. A subtle social texture develops of openness and secrecy, love and betrayal, survival and catastrophe.' Adam Nicolson, Guardian 'A sublime successor to the beautiful “Silvertown”, is a classic of its kind. Social history is personalised in a narrative that renders period detail and sophisticated psychology in a novelistic style.' Kate Saunders, The Times 'McGrath is an engaging writer who is passionate about bringing her story alive. Daisy Cromelin would probably have never imagined that she would even be worth a line in the local newspaper, yet Melanie McGrath has found a quiet dignity and honesty in this most ordinary of ordinary lives.' Leo Hollis, Sunday Telegraph