Told from Gretel Samuelson's sly and knowing perspective, Local Girls charts her progress as she navigates from childhood to the brink of womanhood, picking her way though the tragedies and absurdities of everyday life in a family which is rocked by divorce and disaster, bad judgement and fierce attachments. Her father has left them, her chain-smoking mother, Franny, is falling apart and refuses to learn the simple lessons of life, her perfect brother has fatal flaws, and even her best friend Jill - blonde, enviable and beautiful - is moving too fast into the unfathomable world of women.

Alice Hoffman is the author of thirteen novels, includingAt Risk,White Horses,Turtle Moon,Second Nature,Practical Magic,Here on Earth,The River Kingand, most recently,Blue Diary, many of which have been best-sellers in the USA and Germany, and she has also written screenplays. Alice Hoffman is married with two sons, and lives in Massachusetts.

'Alice Hoffman writes quite wonderfully about the magic in our lives' The New York Times Book Review