Reviews of Sylvia Murphy's Books
A Home For Jack
A story for every child who has wanted a kitten to look after
SHADOW: The Story of a Wartime Cat
Freddie lived out the last days of his full life in the Persian Rescue Centre in Bristol. Although surrounded by love and care, he was very old by the time he died and nobody knows how he came to be on the city streets. Tragically, he gave up the struggle to survive just before this book was finished. However, I think he managed to communicate most of the facts that had been passed down in his family while he still remembered them - stories about bombs and guns and secret treks across country to look for safe homes for young kittens.
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BIG GINGER
A young Ginger cat finds himself separated from his mother on a foreign island. Determined to be re-united with her, he begins a journey around the island to find her.
This is the story of how he progressed in his quest as he grew up into a strong, independent cat. It's the story of the people he met along the way who helped him - Rocky, Liza, Corazon, the kind lady with the garden full of strays. It's also about those who threatened him, like the fishermen, Carlos the tabby and the menacing fur robbers.
Most of the characters here are people and cats I have really known. Some of the things that happened to them are figments of my imagination, but not many. There was a Ginger and a Rocky, both of whom distributed their genes liberally around the island. If you know what you are looking for you can easily find their descendants.
CANDY'S CHILDREN
A wealthy Palestinian businessman, a middle-aged rock star, an Australian university lecturer, a nun, and an English aristocrat - why are these five ill-assorted people meeting up in a stately home in Yorkshire?
They are the children of Candy Price, one time film star and recently dowager Countess of Penmore. She has been murdered by an assassin's bomb on a mysterious visit to Tel Aviv and they are gathering for her funeral - an event that will change all their lives one way or another.
CROCODILES
After the collapse of his comfortable life as an up-and-coming city banker Paul Tolley answers a cry for help from Africa where his brother Rob runs a tourist lodge with his wife Elsa. Rob has disappeared, leaving Elsa on her own. Paul knows nothing about Africa and soon learns that nothing is what it seems and nobody can be trusted. Everything is dangerous - the people as well as the wildlife, and in particular the crocodiles among them who are ready to devour anything in their path.
DEALING WITH A DEATH IN THE FAMILY
How to manage the emotional and practical difficulties surrounding a death
How To Books
Much as we may prefer to avoid thinking about it, sooner or later every family has to face up to the death of one of its members. This book helps anyone who has to work their way through the practical maze of legal and social arrangements before they can be left in peace to mourn the departed.
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ECHOES - Poems By Sylvia Murphy
Author Sylvia Murphy has been writing poetry for over sixty years and this is a collection of some of her favourite pieces.
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KEEPING NYALA IN STYLE
Improving a Classic Boat and maintaining her original elegance.
Nyala is an eleven-ton ketch built in 1933 and designed by Maurice Griffiths. This is the story of how the author and her husband brought the boat up to a suitable standard so that they could cruise and live aboard her. The task was a lengthy one and as the story unfolds, each step of the work is carefully explained and beautifully illustrated.
The wealth of useful information on how to fit new equipment without losing the essential character of a wooden boat has made this book a popular handbook for others who are involved in similar projects worldwide.
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SURVIVING YOUR PARTNER
Living with the death of the person closest to you
"This book gives the bereaved hope and empowerment" George Penaluna
Losing your life's partner is a devastating experience. Whether the partnership was long and the surviving partner is well into old age, or whether it was relatively short and the survivor has much of his or her life still ahead, the emotional and practical problems are enormous. Not only is there bereavement and all its associated problems to face, there is also the prospect of becoming single again.
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THE COMPLETE KNOWLEDGE OF SALLY FRY
What is to be done when your thesis is long overdue, your son has run away from home and even retreating to a remote holiday cottage in Cornwall with a mother adept at absorbing (or is it attracting) problems has not brought the required peace and quiet? For Sally Fry, the harassed heroine of this unusual novel, the answer is to write her Complete Knowledge: bits and pieces of random information which she hopes will clarify and make sense of her haphazard life. But, far from clearing her mind for more serious work, Sally’s Knowledge increasingly comes to reflect the hilarious and often outrageous events which overtake her through the eventful summer.
"Sylvia Murphy writes with tremendous aplomb and disarming wit" - The Times
"Acidly observant and bitchy" - The Observer
"Most accomplished, very funny, very human" - Homes & Gardens
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THE LIFE AND TIMES OF BARLY BEACH
After the break-up of her ill-judged marriage, Jenny Sharpe takes refuge in unspoilt Barly Beach with her young son, Thomas. After an idyllic summer she decides to stay and they begin to carve out a place for themselves as part of the local scene. That is, until the Black Corporation decides it is time to exploit Barly’s potential for redevelopment and the sleepy backwater wakes up to defend itself.
"Written with subtlety and cunning and every page, sentence and word is completely delightful" - The Daily Telegraph
"Ominously entertaining" - The Guardian
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TRUST
Two ambitious men meet through a chance encounter in World War 2, when one saves the other from a freezing death in the Arctic Ocean. In the ensuing peace, when Britain is struggling to restore its commercial status, they come together again and seize the opportunity to amass a fortune, only to destroy themselves and those they love through greed and vanity. Banker Giles Lambert deserts his wife and sons for the arms of a glamorous actress while retail tycoon Robert Luton tries to bully his beautiful daughter into a fashionable marriage.
Once again Sylvia Murphy has painted an evocative picture of a disintegrating family life and the tensions that can arise between generations who will never understand each other's motives.
TYFOON’S TALE The true story of a seafaring cat
In 1989 Sylvia Murphy and David Greenland set off to sail around the world in their 60 year old Maurice Griffiths’ Ketch, Nyala. While they were in Portugal they adopted one of the many lost, sickly kittens that haunt the harbours of Southern Europe. They called her Tyfoon, after the Belgian boat that first rescued her. This is the true story of how Tyfoon took over and re-organised the direction of Sylvia’s life for the next eighteen years. It is a mixture of comedy and disaster, courage and love, that pulls at the heartstrings.
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