Miranda Miller -

My mother didn't look up from her knitting. "Oh, just nieces in South Africa," she said, her voice as flat as the London sky.

Years later, I found the truth buried in a bundle of letters at the bottom of a cedar chest. They weren't nieces. They were daughters. My mother hadn't just moved back to London from the colonies; she had performed a vanishing act, shedding one life like a winter coat to start another in the grey, polite streets of St. John’s Wood. miranda miller

"Who are they?" I asked one rainy afternoon, my finger tracing the silver edge of the frames. My mother didn't look up from her knitting

In the spirit of the real-life , a contemporary English novelist known for her "wild and joyful inventiveness", It draws inspiration from her recent explorations into memory and the blurred lines between autobiography and fiction. The Shadow in the Dressing Table They weren't nieces

Standing there, I realized that writing about her wasn't enough. To understand the woman who could walk away, I had to stop looking at the photographs and start looking through her eyes—not as a daughter, but as a woman who found the courage to be someone else, even if it meant being haunted forever. About the Real Miranda Miller

: You can read her full biography and bibliography at the Royal Literary Fund .