Broadcaster and journalist Joan Bakewell returns to Liverpool for her second novel, She’s Leaving Home. It is the 1950s and Bakewell tells the story of three members of one family, a suppressed mother, a projectionist father working at a rundown cinema and their daughter Martha. Liverpool is on the verge of on an unprecedented era of freedom with Beatlemania and the sexual revolution, and Bakewell chronicles the impact of this new age on the family.

Bakewell is a veteran journalist and broadcaster. She is particularly known for being the main presenter on the BBC’s discussion and documentary series Heart of the Matter between 1988 and 2000. She has written one other novel, All the Nice Girls.