A compassionate picture of life as an adult with a learning disability, written by retired social care worker.

 

‘Beautifully drawn characters and a unique storyline’ 

Ruby Speechley, bestselling author of Guilty on Apples in the Dark 

 

Tom’s sister Emmy has almost become one of the family with Rachel, Beth and Alice. But learning-disabled Emmy lives with her fiercely protective mother. A mother who has let her own fears constrain Emmy’s life and made no attempt to prepare for Emmy’s future. 

 

Emmy is thirty-six when her mother dies, and their rigid home routine has left her unprepared for change. Walk with Emmy as she takes tentative, scary steps towards independence with support from Rachel and her friends. It takes a while, but Emmy finds that she has a role to play in other people’s lives. And discovers where she truly belongs.

 

The author has a lifetime’s experience working with people like Emmy. He has walked alongside them as they journey towards empowerment and a sense of their own agency. 

 

John Alex Taylor has worked for most of his life with adults with learning disabilities. In writing Angels and Blackbirds, he pays tribute to some of those people and the many gifts they have toshare. The main character Emmy is fictional, but her story and the obstacles she faces are drawn from experience. 

 

John explains: “Emmy experiences situations drawn from the reality of living with a learning disability. She doesn’t conform to stereotypes often seen in fiction. Her journey towards empowerment hinges on getting the support she needs to dare to make informed choices of her own. Rachel, the other narrator, draws on my own experience of living with a hidden disability. Both narrators have gifts and both have weaknesses. I want readers to see the world through the eyes of a person with a learning disability who has some of the gifts her peers have shared with me over many years. Their humanity matters more than their disability. And I also want to show the human consequences of our fragmented social care system in Britain.” 

 

Release date: 28/06/2025

www.troubador.co.uk/bookshop/contemporary/angels-and-blackbirds