: Kelly Frost
: The Kings Head A Times historical fiction book of the month 2025
: Atlantic Books
: 9781805462392
: 1
: CHF 11,70
:
: Erzählende Literatur
: English
: 304
: Wasserzeichen
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
A fierce story about friendship and competition set among London's forgotten girl gangs _______________________ 'Compelling' THE SUNDAY TIMES 'The Kings Head's postwar era is clearly defined. But the questions it asks are eternal' OBSERVER 'A glorious tale of female friendship and rivalry' LUCIE McKNIGHT HARDY 'Wonderfully vivid, powerful and compelling' JOSEPH O'CONNOR 'A startling new talent' PETER JAMES _______________________ We never ran the place on paper, but we had reigned here as Kings, reigned over the world we created for ourselves. 1957, London. A gang of girls called the Kings rule the bomb-struck streets of Finsbury Park. When Harry, their unpredictable but charismatic leader, tries to encroach on the territory of the rival Seven Sisters gang, the Kings know they're in for a fight. Armed with flick knives and fists, they do battle in dancehalls and on football fields. But with the authorities closing in and conscripted boys threatening to reclaim what was once theirs, the Kings must ask if they're willing to pay the price of loyalty. Bound by wild friendship and brutal competition, these young women will do anything to carve a space for themselves in this ruthless city. __________________________ Readers are loving The Kings Head 'Fresh and exhilarating' 'Thoroughly enjoyed' 'Well-written' 'I would definitely recommend' 'Looking forward to reading more from Kelly Frost'

Kelly Frost grew up in Salisbury and lives and works in Jersey. She has an undergraduate degree in English from UCL and a Masters degree in American Literature from Oxford. The Kings Head is her first novel.

ONE


1957


Tony had misplaced the balls – both of them. The other girls were livid, but Tony, swaying as she shut the front door behind her, was too drunk to care.

‘Come on, then, where did you last see them?’ Saint demanded, swatting Tony’s blazered arm, looking at the watch ticking away on Tony’s wrist. Less than an hour until the football match. The wind shifted the dried leaves, skittering them around their ankles. Tony pulled the hip flask to her lips for another gulp. ‘Think, Tone, for God’s sake. Are they somewhere in your flat?’ Saint looked up to the top-floor window.

‘Prob-ly not,’ Tony said, shrugging.

‘What about the park? Did you leave them there last week? In the hole near the gate?’

Tony shrugged again.

Leave it, Saint, the other girls chorused.She couldn’t tell her arse from her elbow.

Saint threw up both hands in defeat.

‘Alright, alright. I give up. It’s not my bleeding fault she’s drunk for the Sunday football match, or that there’s no balls. But if the Kings lose, I’m blaming you.’ She started off down the street, the others gathering behind her.

‘She would fix it… if she was here,’ Leslie nodded, head bobbing up and down.

‘Well, she’s not,’ Jackie snapped back. Leslie punched her twin’s bicep; Jackie punched back, ever in unison. The twins were identical in both their features – with the same face shape, eye shape, sweep of home-permed brown curls – and their clothing choices. They wore the same scarf tied with the same knot, the same blazer and pin, trousers rolled to the same height above the ankle. It was uncanny (bloody creepy, Tony sometimes said), but neither of them cared. Instead, they revelled, in their own ways, in the security of sameness.

The terraced houses rose around them like greying, unsightly weeds, casting the streets into shadow-light nearly-darkness. Through a gentle wishwash of Sunday-afternoon strollers, the Kings walked to the Dent, a burnt-down carcass of a building that had once been a laundrette. On last year’s Guy Fawkes Night, a firework had gone astray and hurtled into the terrace. The fire that followed forged a new spot for the youth of North London to congregate. Since then, it had been left as it was, and