The Fairground Girl gets a "thumbs up" review from Britain's top wrestling blog

The Fairground Girl and Other Attractions contains three stories about three women in three very different areas of showbusiness. The title story follows the adventures of Beatrice who runs away with fairground boy Eddie in the 1950s. The second, The Lion's Den, focuses on Charlotte, an animal rights protestor who goes undercover to expose cruelty at a circus in the 1980s. The final tale, Blue Eyes and Heels is about a girl fighting the ultimate battle of the sexes in the wrestling ring.
When I wrote Blue Eyes... I wanted to show both sides of the wrestling world: the showbiz and fakery plus the very real skill and danger that goes into putting on a show in the ring.
I wondered what wrestling fans and professionals would make of my portrayal of their world. So I'm glad to say that Julian Radbourne has called it "a very good read" and given it a "thumbs up" on The Two Sheds Review - Britain's longest-standing wrestling and mixed martial arts blog. Also that he enjoyed the Fairground Girl and the Lion's Den, too. Click here to read his review of The Fairground Girl And Other Attractions.

And click here to download the Kindle edition of the Fairground Girl from Amazon.

Mick McManus - the final bell

Angel gazed admiringly at the cups and trophies crammed on the mantle piece above the gas fire. The gold and leather championship belts that hung proudly against the floral wallpaper and the countless framed photographs.
Granddad as an Adonis in trunks and wrestling boots, posing with every legend she could name. Mick McManus, Rollerball Rocco, Big Daddy, Giant Haystacks.
She’d grown up with the names and the stories. Most of them had been long gone, even then. Now just a few clips on YouTube remained. Ghosts from a mythical age before her time when the whole country had gathered to watch the Saturday afternoon wrestling on ITV.
She looked down at her granddad, bent, broken and breathless in his chair. He was almost the last of his kind.
That was why she had to make it. He had to see her make British wrestling great again.

The passage is from Blue Eyes and Heels, the story of a woman wrestler fighting for equality in a man’s world, that is one of the tales in The Fairground Girl and Other Attractions. It came back to me when I heard that one of the biggest legends of the roped circle had passed away today, aged 93.

Mick McManus

January 11, 1920 - May 22, 2013