After Reading...

Hello !

Thank you for reading A Penny a Shell.

Some of the people you met in the novel lived lives that could not fully be contained within its pages.

Below are a number of companion pieces — short, self-contained stories exploring moments before and after the events of Room 42.

These are not sequels, and they are not required reading.
They are simply here for readers who wish to linger a little longer.

 

After Reading... Downloadable Stand Alone Companion Stories

After Reading... Joe Atkinson

Joe Atkinson

A short narrative following Joe Atkinson from his apprenticeship in Leeds to the morning of 1 July 1916. This piece explores the life he expected to live — and the one he never had the chance to return to.

June Mitchell

A short narrative following June Mitchell in the months before Barnbow. This companion piece explores the choices that keep her family warm, fed, and solvent — and the careful sums that turn survival into routine, just before the balance is finally broken.

Hilda Morton

A short narrative following Hilda Morton from the classroom to Barnbow. It charts the death that ends one vocation and the sense of duty that leads her into another, where teaching gives way to discipline, silence, and risk.