When it comes to memoir, Miranda Miller is an incorrigible novelist. Viola, three years old in 1953 when guests gather in her parents' London home to watch the Queen's coronation on TV, is not Miranda. Yet character and author share the same age, the same home, the same parents and three brothers, the same friends and fears and love of books and breathless adventures in her native city.

When I Was brings all the family members centre stage, each character opening their consciousness to reveal a multi-faceted study as life presses in on a family's hopes and dreams.

The novel whisks us through 1950s London, in a tale as true as a novelist can make it. The twists of its drama, as a young girl forges her way into being, let you into secrets of resilience and love.