Beyond the Beehive

1965, a year of mods and rockers, Motown, milk bars and ban-the-bomb marches.

Sandra and Linda have been best friends since they can remember. They live on a working-class housing estate in Essex. Sandra’s New Year Resolution is to get engaged to Danny Mulroney, the local bad boy. Linda needs to leave the estate or so Sylvie says - Sylvie the exotic, scarlet woman, who has a baby but no husband, lived in Paris but has no passport, reads books but has no bookcase.

Beyond the Beehive is an authentic story of female friendship and the search for love and adventure at a time of political and social change.

Elizabeth Woodcraft grew up on a working class housing estate in Essex. She was a mod and worked in the local milk bar. After attending Birmingham University she taught English in Leicestershire and the Loire Valley. Then she worked for the National Women’s Aid Federation in London and subsequently read for the Bar. During her time at the Bar, working from the chambers of Michael Mansfield QC, she represented Greenham Common Peace Protesters, Anti-Apartheid demonstrators, striking miners and Clause 28 activists, as well as battered women, children who suffered sex abuse in and out of their homes and gay parents seeking parental rights. Her first two books were Good Bad Woman and Babyface (HarperCollins), crime novels featuring barrister Frankie Richmond. Good Bad Woman was short listed for a CWA prize for best first crime novel, and won a Lambda award in the US.