When Lily Ponds Ripple is now available.
After a gestation of many years, Florence and Charlie have left the twilight of my imagination to walk in the light. When Lily Ponds Ripple is an old-fashioned novel in the best sense of the word. In a refreshingly straightforward narrative, it tracks the sisters’ journey to another continent. The reader is drawn into Florence and Charlie’s lives and is privy to their failure and success.
The book demonstrates the destructive power of secrets and what we are prepared to do for those we love. It evokes the sensual magic of Barbados in the latter half of the twentieth century. Later, it takes the audience to Frankfurt’s pitted cityscape and a nation still traumatized by World War II. When Lily Ponds Ripple oscillates between Barbados and Germany and conjures up the flavour of two cultures. Its captivating cast stays with us long after the last page is turned.
Anne-Marie Fitzwilliam and her twin sister were born in Trinidad. She has five siblings. When she was eight, her father relocated his solicitor’s office to Barbados, and the whole family moved to that neighbouring island.
Motivated by her father who wrote short stories for the Colonial BBC in his free time, Anne-Marie was immersed in literature from an early age. When she was not playing with her siblings and dozens of cousins, she and her twin could usually be found under a tree with a book on their lap. The texts were often history books about the campaigns of Napoleon or novels by the Brontë sisters. Even as a teenager, she was captivated by the measureless world of literature. The Cloister Bookstore in Bridgetown became her haven. “It was the smell of words warmed up,” she later said. “Thousands of lives and loves waiting to be discovered.”
At the age of twenty-one, Anne-Marie got married and moved to her German husband’s home in Frankfurt. After attending a language college, Fitzwilliam read English and German at the Wolfgang Goethe University. She holds degrees in both subjects. Though Germany has remained her home, she often visits her close-knit family in Barbados or flies to South Carolina to be with her twin.
Her friends in the International Women’s Club of Frankfurt were a great source of inspiration and helped her understand the expatriate experience. Although the plot of When Lily Ponds Ripple is wholly fictional, the author draws on insights from her own twin relationship, and her life in Barbados, London, and Germany. This is her first novel.
Motivated by her father who wrote short stories for the Colonial BBC in his free time, Anne-Marie was immersed in literature from an early age. When she was not playing with her siblings and dozens of cousins, she and her twin could usually be found under a tree with a book on their lap. The texts were often history books about the campaigns of Napoleon or novels by the Brontë sisters. Even as a teenager, she was captivated by the measureless world of literature. The Cloister Bookstore in Bridgetown became her haven. “It was the smell of words warmed up,” she later said. “Thousands of lives and loves waiting to be discovered.”
At the age of twenty-one, Anne-Marie got married and moved to her German husband’s home in Frankfurt. After attending a language college, Fitzwilliam read English and German at the Wolfgang Goethe University. She holds degrees in both subjects. Though Germany has remained her home, she often visits her close-knit family in Barbados or flies to South Carolina to be with her twin.
Her friends in the International Women’s Club of Frankfurt were a great source of inspiration and helped her understand the expatriate experience. Although the plot of When Lily Ponds Ripple is wholly fictional, the author draws on insights from her own twin relationship, and her life in Barbados, London, and Germany. This is her first novel.
About
When Lily Ponds Ripple
General Fiction
Anne-Marie Fitzwilliam
Pages: 572
Austin Macauley Publishers
• +44 (0) 203 515 0352
• +44 (0) 207 038 8212
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Order: www.austinmacauley.com
ISBN: 978-13984-7561-8
When Lily Ponds Ripple
When Lily Ponds Ripple is an absorbing novel about the West Indian twins: brooding Florence and charismatic Charlotte Montague.
The revelation of a family secret leads to events that damage two families. Old lies beget new ones. Hoping to leave the betrayal behind, the sisters relocate to different countries.
The novel starts with a telephone call that causes the narrator to end her years of self-exile. She must visit Barbados to bury her childhood ghosts.
The story portrays a bond that transcends rivalry and betrayal. It is also a celebration of friendship between dissimilar people whose paths accidentally cross.
When Lily Ponds Ripple is as entertaining as it is profound.