CRY TO DREAM AGAIN

CRY TO DREAM AGAIN is the prequel to the successful Silent Music. It is a thwarted love story set against the background of the Second World War.

In 1930s Greater London, Shirley is a talented ballerina who dreams of becoming a principal dancer at the Sadler's Wells Ballet Company. Yet one summer, on the way back from staying with her grandparents in France, she meets a handsome young man, Alan, for a fleeting moment and her life changes for ever. Finding him becomes an obsession for Shirley and now she longs to fulfil her dreams in the ballet simply so that he might see her name in lights and know where to find her.

With the outbreak of the Second World War, and those she loves in danger, Shirley's priority becomes to help in the war effort, but with Alan appearing once more in her life, and the war threatening to part them for a second time, she knows that she cannot cope if she were to lose him again.

Dr Jane Hawking, who was Stephen Hawking's wife for over twenty years, is a writer and lecturer. Her book At Home in France was published in 1994, followed by her memoir Travelling to Infinity which became an Oscar-winning movie in 2015 under the title The Theory of Everything.