Queenie of Norwich: A compelling tale based on the true story of one woman's quest to beat the odds.

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At first my father would not let us take any money for fetching her groceries or hanging up her washing – he said it was only neighbourly. The reader gets dropped into Ellen’s world when she is a six-year old child, one of many children who lives in extreme poverty with parents who are unable to adequately meet their children’s needs. That’s the polite version and the author gets into the gritty aspects of what this really means; hardly any food, one set of clothes, no running water and so much more.

He got up and came at her with his hand raised, saying not to tell him that he’d been drunk, never to tell him that. He was wrong about everything. We did not seem anywhere near the same age, because Queenie was nine, when my father married Bet, and I was six. Though later, after I had skipped a grade and Queenie had failed one, we came closer together in school. And I never knew anyone to try to be mean to Queenie. She was somebody everybody wanted to be friends with. She was chosen first for a baseball team even though she was a careless baseball player, and first for a spelling team though she was a poor speller. Also, she and I did not get into fights. Not once. She showed plenty of kindness towards me and I had plenty of admiration for her. I would have worshipped her for her dark-gold hair and her sleepy-looking dark eyes and her giggly easy-going confidence, even if she had not been kind. But for a pretty girl she had an extraordinarily sweet nature. She dropped the knife and came to me in a hurry, saying softly, ‘You walked right in with it in your hand, I should have told you, put it in your purse. My private letter.’ She grabbed it from my hand and right at that moment the kettle on the stove began to shriek. At six years old Mum sold me. I became Nellie Westrop, roaming the country in a showman's wagon, learning the art of the fair. E xcept for​ going to the bathroom in the morning and sneaking out to put my pad in the garbage pail, I sat on my made-up cot in the sun porch until Mr Vorguilla was out of the house. I was afraid he might not have any place to go but apparently he did. As soon as he was gone Queenie called to me. She had set out a peeled orange and cornflakes and coffee.I still couldn’t get used to her saying ‘Stan’. It wasn’t just the reminder of her intimacy with Mr Vorguilla. It was that, of course. But it was also the feeling it gave, that she had made him up from scratch. A new person. Stan. As if there had never been a Mr Vorguilla, that we had known together – let alone a Mrs Vorguilla – in the first place. Queenie was a free-spirited, kind-hearted woman. [22] She was very empathetic and skilled in the art of Legilimency, which sometimes affected her relationship with others, but deepened the one she shared with her sister. [21] [22] [24] She was also considered to be "very brave." [24] Queenie was unperturbed by the prejudice of her fellow wizards towards No-Majs, as ferociously evidenced by her relationship with Jacob Kowalski, and her empathy towards him. Having been sorted into Pukwudgie, Queenie was incredibly kind towards people she realised were in pain or torment, as shown by how she consoled Newt Scamander about his relationship with Leta Lestrange - stating that Leta was a taker, whilst he needed a giver. This is the fictionalised life of the eponymous Queenie Read, a real person who was born in Norwich in 1900 as Ellen Hardy, “dragged up” in poverty in the yards of Norwich, and had, to say the least, a colourful life. LK Wilde brings the hard reality of that life to light in the early part of this story, demonstrating the real poverty and hardship that poor people in Norwich had to endure. We get to know the character of Ellen and her sisters and brothers, and how they had to look after their alcoholic parents.

Heart warming and breaking in equal measure, Queenie of Norwich is perfect for fans of The Foundling, Where the Crawdads Sing, and The Smallest Man. And do you have some qualifications,’ Mr Vorguilla said. ‘Do you have qualifications for finding a job in Toronto?’

Oh, I don’t know about that,’ Stan said. ‘I think maybe you gave it away. And I think I know who to.’ When I had brought the tray in I saw the annoyance on Mr Vorguilla’s face, that it wasn’t Queenie. But he spoke to me in a surprisingly tolerant way and introduced me to Leslie. Leslie was a stout bald man who at first looked to me almost as old as Mr Vorguilla, but when you got used to him and took his baldness into account he looked much younger. He was not the sort of friend I would have expected Mr Vorguilla to have. He was not brusque or know-it-all but comfortable and full of encouragement. For example, when I told about my employment at the lunch counter he said, ‘Well you know, that’s something. Getting hired the first place you tried. It shows you know how to make a good impression.’ Q ueenie​ brought me a couple of 222s to take with my Coke. ‘It’s amazing how your cramps clear up,’ she said. ‘It’s a benefit of being married.’ Queenie Jenkins played by Dionne Brown (Criminal Record and The Walk-In) is a twenty-five-year-old Jamaican British woman living in South London, straddling two cultures and slotting neatly into neither. After a messy break up from her long-term boyfriend Tom, played by Jon Pointing (Big Boys), Queenie seeks comfort in all the wrong places, and begins to realise she has to face the past head on, before she can re-build. Use a little logic,’ he said. ‘If it’s here, get up and find it. If it isn’t here, then you gave it away.’

I couldn’t think. I still had the sensation of the room moving around me, though it wasn’t doing that any more in a physical way. Queenie was a stunning witch with blonde hair. [4] She was noted for her beauty, being described as a "bombshell". [10] Personality and traits [ ] Queenie Read– the research for this part of the book was largely based on family recollections of Queenie and the stories she had told. I found numerous newspaper articles reporting raids on betting shops, and these provided a window into the world Queenie was living in!

Who is behind the production?

On the bookshelf I saw The Encyclopedia of Music, and The World Companion to Opera, and The Lives of the Great Composers. Also the large thin book with the beautiful cover – the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam– that Mrs Vorguilla often had beside her couch. Flood, Alison (3 March 2020). "Women's prize for fiction lines up 'heavy hitters' on 2020 longlist". The Guardian. Body for Protection of Magical Species · Department of Aurors · Department of Magical Law Enforcement · Department of No-Maj Misinformation · Department of Unidentifiable Magical Objects · Department for Confiscated Items · Federal Bureau of Covert Vigilance and No-Maj Obliviation · MACUSA Communications Department · MACUSA Investigation Department · MACUSA Surveillance Wizarding Resources Department · Magical Cleaning Department · Major Investigation Department · Office for Magic Relations and Education · US Auror Divisions · Wand Permit Department · Wizarding Resources Department

The moving-men waved cheerfully as if they were used to scenes like this and maybe they were. Moving furniture must expose you to a lot of ranting and raging. But now something has happened. Now in the years when my children are grown up and my husband has retired, and he and I are travelling a lot, I have an idea that sometimes I see Queenie. It’s not through any particular wish or effort that I see her, and it’s not as if I believed it was really her, either. You get over to Vorguilla’s,’ she said to me. ‘She might’ve thought of something she was supposed to do over there.’ Kate Upton, Saoirse Ronan, Dakota Fanning Eyed for J.K. Rowling's 'Fantastic Beasts' Trilogy (Exclusive)" at The Wrap It wasn’t so hard to pour out tea and offer milk and sugar and pass sandwiches, and even talk, when you knew something other people didn’t know, about a danger they were in. It was just because he didn’t know that I could feel something other than loathing for Mr Vorguilla. It wasn’t that he had changed in himself – or if he had changed it was probably because I had. I had changed enough to feel now almost less uneasy with him than I would have to feel with Queenie.

Queenie is produced by Further South Productions in association with Lionsgate TV. Queenie will be available on Channel 4 in the UK and the Republic of Ireland and will stream exclusively on Hulu in the U.S., Star+ in Latin America, Disney+ in all other territories.