The Palace of Strange Girls : Harper Perennial : 9780007276073 : 0007276079 : 05 Feb 2009 : I-SPY AT THE SEASIDE Hello, children! Welcome to your very own I-Spy Book. In these pages you'll be able to look for all kinds of secret, exciting things that are found only by the sea. Blackpool, 1959. The Singleton family is on holiday. For seven-year-old Beth, just out of hospital, this means struggling to fill in her 'I-Spy' book and avoiding her mother Ruth's eagle-eyed supervision. Her sixteen-year-old sister Helen, meanwhile, has befriended a waitress whose fun-loving ways hint at a life beyond Ruth's strict rules. But times are changing. As foreman of the local cotton mill, Ruth's husband Jack is caught between unions and owners whose cost-cutting measures threaten an entire way of life. And his job isn't the only thing at risk. When a letter arrives from Crete, a secret re-emerges from the rubble of Jack's wartime past that could destroy his marriage. As Helen is tempted outside the