The BlackbirdPaperback, 30 June 2020

Hope nurses a husband with Alzheimer's, a retired civic sculptor. A secret he has kept for her threatens the fragile peace she has made with her parents' memory: the truth of what happened to her mother while her obsessive father built Liverpool Cathedral as the bombs still fell.

Hope brings in Louise to be home-carer. A young mother struggling alone on the Blackbird Estate with an abusive ex-partner. Together, can they build a place where the past can't hurt them?

Allen resists glorification of the Blitz with the sights, sounds and smells that surround helpless citizens. Hope's story weaves together two little-known histories: The Liverpool Blitz (WW2) and a contemporary community living in the post-War architecture of Allen's London "Blackbird Estate".