52 ratings | 22 reviews | avg rating:4.25

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Alex Morrall

Goodreads Author

Born

Birmingham

Website

https://alexmorrall.com

Twitter

alexpaintings

Genre

Fiction, Contemporary

Influences

Clare Morrall Helen Dunmore Nathan Filer Elizabeth Strout Curtis Sitt ...more

Member Since

March 2018

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Writer and artist born in Birmingham but living in south east London. She writes about the complexities of society with warmth, empathy and a touch of humour in novels and poetry.

Alex is often ideally found on her bike, enjoying food or by the sea. I also food blog and you can follow me, watch videos and find out about new publications on https://alexmorrall.com

FREE DELETED SCENE, ‘Helen, Ruth and One Bee’ and sign up for updates on https://dl.bookfunnel.com/4tuuxw7ihs

‘Helen and the Grandbees’ is based in the deprived areas of Deptford, and is about the strength of family love overcoming the most intimidating of barriers.

Represented by Philippa Sitters at DGA

Favourite authors include: Helen Dunmore, William Boyd, Elizabeth Strout, Ann Patch ...more

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Alex Morrall’s books

Average rating: 3.97 · 142 ratings · 56 reviews · 7 distinct works • Similar authors

	Helen and The Grandbees 3.96 avg rating — 129 ratings — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Adrift - The Storyteller & The Mosaicist 4.10 avg rating — 10 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Remembering Not To Breathe by Alex Morrall (Goodreads Author), Clare Morrall (Goodreads Author) really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 3 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Remembering Not to Breathe: Short Stories by Alex Morrall and Man Booker Shortlisted Clare Morrall by Alex Morrall (Goodreads Author), Alex Morrall (Goodreads Author) 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Adrift: The Storyteller and the Mosaicist 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Adrift: The Storyteller and the Mosaicist 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Remembering Not to Breathe: Short Stories by Alex Morrall and Man Booker Shortlisted Clare Morrall by Alex Morrall (Goodreads Author), Clare Morrall (Goodreads Author) 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Alex Morrall's Blog: Balancing writing and painting

The Stories behind the Stories

The kind and wonderful Tregoll’s book club will be hosting me on 10th July at 2:15pm… and they will open the event out on Zoom.

So why not come along to hear the stories behind the stories, or even armed with questions (prioritising books, rather than my other website topics of art and cake).

Hit reply to book a seat..

Alex is Currently Reading

Alex Morrall is currently reading

Helen and The Grandbees

by Alex Morrall (Goodreads Author)

bookshelves: currently-reading, literary-fiction, book-club

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Alex Morrall said: " Brief extract from Helen & The Grandbees
- in conjunction with April 2021 99p offer on the kindle edition...

After running-away-to-London, bad things happened. I was fourteen.
It was not all bad when I ran away from Dudley to the city threaded with dirt Brief extract from Helen & The Grandbees
- in conjunction with April 2021 99p offer on the kindle edition...

After running-away-to-London, bad things happened. I was fourteen.
It was not all bad when I ran away from Dudley to the city threaded with dirty Victorian railway bridges. There were some good things: I had a nail varnish that was such an unbelievable pink. A pink that could only have existed in the nuclear age. Oh yeah, a radioactive bubble gum pink that was pure plastic.
And some mornings I would wake up, and search out the least chipped nail and stare, and delight in that pink in the daylight. It was so elegant, so modern. Wherever I happened to have woken up, in someone else’s cluttered bedsit, or in the doorway of a neglected building, and however broken and bruised I was, that pink nail varnish was something familiar, like an old bedspread, like a friend. My comfort came with me wherever I woke up.
But a lot of bad things happened too, like the day that I had stinking period pain as I sat to rest on a bench at Southwark Cathedral, like my sides were about to explode for two days, and they took me to a different hospital. They gave me a bath in hospital, and they shaved me too, you know, in private places. Then they hooked up my ankles into strange metal arms.
“Breathe like this…” said the nurse who put a syringe in my leg when I was lying down, when the pains were louder and quicker. So I breathed like that during the pains. But between the pains I stared at my pink vanished nails right until the next roaring pain would come.
The nurses looked down at me as I lay on the bed like I was a piece of dirt. And I tried to be good and I tried to be quiet through the explosions but it was impossible to be even slightly quiet.
And eventually my insides ripped out into a beautiful brown little baby, bald and covered in blood, kicking angrily at the air.
Now, I do know my birds and my bees nowadays. It’s just that the birds just aren’t worth the mention.
Oh, but my little baby bee. You’ve got to believe me: she was wrinkly and whiny, but beautiful. Beautiful feet, unbelievable toes, warm black skin. I wanted kiss every single eyelash. She was more wonderful than a hundred zillion pink nail varnishes, and with a hundred zillion different perspectives to look at her cute ears and nostrils and tear ducts and wide black eyes, and grasping fingers, and her addictive love to me.
I called her Lily.
And I could only clasp her to me all the time and feed her, and wake and feed her again. And I would get up in the middle of the night in the safe little flat they had given me, a whole train ride from London Bridge with the rotting windows and rotting curtains. I was changing her and singing to her in the flat where I could not keep the dishes clean and cook and hold her. I loved her. It circled in the air that I loved her and that I needed to look after her. Properly.
But the time was so confusing. Was it day? Was it night? The fluorescent kitchen light would hum at me, and the clock leered at me… I knew I had to wash, but wash what? The curtains? The bee? The dishes? And she would scream at me, my beautiful little bee. Screaming bee.
And they took her away from me for good after three weeks. ‘They’, the machine, the council, hospital, social services. The System.... ...more "

Apr 01, 2021 12:46PM · see review

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Alex’s Recent Updates

Alex Morrall wrote a new blog post The Stories behind the Stories The kind and wonderful Tregoll’s book club will be hosting me on 10th July at 2:15pm… and they will open the event out on Zoom.So why not come along t Read more of this blog post »
Jun 29, 2025 05:48AM · like