Part of Pip Granger's early childhood was spent in the back seat of a light aircraft as her father smuggled brandy, tobacco and books across the English Channel to be sold in 1950's Soho, where she lived above The Two Is Cafe in Old Compton Street.

She travelled in Europe and Asia in the 1980's, before quitting teaching to pursue her long-cherished ambition to write. In 2000 her first novel, NOT ALL TARTS ARE APPLE, won the Harry Bowling Prize for fiction. NOT ALL TARTS ARE APPLE, THE WIDOW GINGER and TROUBLE IN PARADISE and NO PEACE FOR THE WICKED are all published by Corgi Books.

Pip's new book, a memoir, was be published in June 2007 by Transworld.

Pip Granger now lives in the West Country with her husband and pets.

Photgraph Credit: Daily Western Press

The only daughter of alcoholic parents, novelist Pip Granger spent much of her childhood outside looking in. No strangers to the demon booze, her parents were deeply involved in a passionate relationship that rose to exciting highs and plunged to terrible and often frightening lows. Drink explained the series of crises, the furious rows and life-threatening accidents Pip had to contend with, and it also explained why her home life was so very different from that of most other people she knew.

Just after her first birthday her family was evicted from their cottage in Sussex for non-payment of rent - a pattern that was to recur throughout her childhood. Home became a place best avoided, and soon Pip was spending time with her ne'er-do-well father in cafes, snooker-halls and other low dives in London's Soho where she made a series of lasting friendships with the unlikeliest of people.

Brave, funny, original and totally authentic, "Alone" is a heartbreaking book about alcohol abuse, parental neglect, and the courage of a little girl to find her own way through a trouble-filled world.