The Sunday Girls


Maureen Reynolds

Category Fiction
Pub Date March 2007
ISBN 1 84502 141 X
Extent 320 pp.
Price £9.99
Format Paperback, 234 x 156 mm
Plate/Illustrations



Voices in the Street, Maureen Reynolds autobiographical account of growing up in Dundee, was a huge success, holding the number-one spot in the bestsellers’ chart for an incredible nine weeks. Crafted with the same storyteller’s gift, effortless warmth and keen understanding of the lives and cares of working people that made Voices in the Street such a phenomenon, The Sunday Girls is Maureen’s first novel.

The first part of a trilogy, The Sunday Girls records the changing fortunes of the Neill family during the 1930s’ Depression in Dundee. Daughter Ann is a bookworm and would love to stay on at school but, following the death of her mother, she is forced to help support the family by taking a job as a housemaid. The contrast between rich and poor, at a time when jobs were as scarce as hens’ teeth, is heart-wrenchingly drawn. These were the hardest of hard times for the whole country but the collapse of the jute industry meant Dundee was particularly badly hit and Maureen skilfully paints a realistic picture of what it was like to live through them.

With her acute ear for dialogue and her ability to tell a cracking tale, Maureen also shows how, despite the hardship, fun, friendship and even love were to be found for the Sunday girls, four girls who all happen to have been born on a Sunday.