‘Williams’s memoir is as flinty, earthy  and plain-spoken as her songs’  New York Times ‘The often hilarious, occasionally harrowing Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You is a bracingly candid chronicle of a sui generis character plotting a ramshackle but ultimately  triumphant trajectory’  Wall Street Journal ‘An engaging read and beautifully written’ MOJO  The beloved and iconic singer-songwriter and three-time Grammy winner opens up about her traumatic childhood in the Deep South, her years of being overlooked in the music industry, and the stories that inspired her enduring songs.  Lucinda Williams’s rise to fame was anything but easy. Raised in a working-class family in the Deep South, she moved from town to town each time her father—a poet, a textbook salesman, a professor, a lover of parties—got a new job, totalling twelve different places by the time she was 18. Her mother suffered from severe mental illness and was in and out of hospitals. And when Williams was about a year old she had to have an emergency tracheotomy—an inauspicious start for a singing career.   But she was also born a fighter, and she would develop a voice that has captivated millions.   Lucinda Williams takes readers through the events that shaped her music—from performing for family friends in her living room to singing at local high schools and colleges, to recording her first album and headlining a sold-out show at Radio City Music Hall. She reveals the inspirations for her unforgettable lyrics, including the doomed love affairs with ‘poets on motorcycles’, and the gothic Southern landscapes of the many different towns of her youth. Williams spent years working at health food stores and record stores during the day so she could play her music at night, and faced record companies who told her that her music was ‘too unfinished’, ‘too country for rock and too rock for country’, and criticism that she didn’t have the right voice for radio or TV. But her fighting spirit persevered, leading to a hard-won success that spans 17 Grammy nominations and a legacy as one of the greatest and most influential songwriters of our time.   Raw, intimate and honest, Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You is an evocative reflection on an extraordinary woman’s life journey.  

When Emily's mother becomes dangerously ill again, in this sequel to 'Tolly and the Pirate Ghost',Emily and the twins, Laura and Harry, time travel with Tobias, the pirate ghost, and his parrot, Tolly, to a tropical island in the year 1660. Their goal is to find the legendary Medicine Tree said to cure any illness, but there are thousands of trees on the island. How can they possibly find the right one? Tobias is reassuring but mysteriously disappears with Tolly, shortly after their arrival, leaving the children to fend for themselves under a scorching sun, with little to eat or drink and no means of getting home. Their problems multiply when they realise a band of ruthless pirates is also hunting for the Tree, and will stop at nothing to gain the prize and make their fortune. Time is running out to save Emily's mother and dangers press in on all sides. As the situation becomes desperate, the children start to quarrel and then to lose hope. More complications arise and their spirits are in turn raised and then dashed. Can they think of some means of escape or will they be trapped forever on a tropical island hundreds of years in the past?