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The Raincoats of Barlow Street

Name: The Raincoats of Barlow Street: premade five-book series
Brand: PlotProse
Price: 1175 USD
Availability: InStock

Five generations of Manchester women can put a sleeve into any coat. Asking for something that fits their own lives takes longer.

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5-book package

$1,175

$235 per book

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Until 3 December: your concept comes with two On-Demand classes of your choice and six TropeSmith Maps.

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The Raincoats of Barlow Street, a women's fiction family saga concept package. The graphic shows 5 novel covers and the free lead magnet, The Button Lily Kept.

The concept

A raincoat sewn by the women of one Manchester street follows the lives of its makers, from a machinist walking home after dark to a granddaughter who has never learned to thread a needle. Every generation must decide whose name gets sewn inside.

1939. May can walk home alone after the late shift. The woman she walks beside is the part she needs to keep to herself. The free companion novella is The Button Lily Kept.

The worldA made-up row of Manchester houses above an old garment workroom. Lily’s bright coat is passed sideways between friends and down through the Carr family. Each fresh lining carries clues to a different woman’s choices, beside alterations made with pride and repairs done in a fury.

Series tropesUnderdog • Opposing Morals to Moral Growth • Opposites Life Goals

Intended readershipNorthern English family fiction for readers of working women’s friendships, mothers and daughters, clothes with a history, and funny, stubborn people who disagree about nearly everything.

Tone & contentTactile and unsentimental, with a generous ending. Five family crises resolve through what the women do for one another.

The people behind the promise

Free novellaLily Carr and her friend Connie Bell

Book 1May Carr and her mother Lily

Book 2Joyce Carr and her aunt May

Book 3Ruth Carr and her mother Joyce

Book 4Polly Carr and her grandmother Joyce

Book 5Polly Carr and her daughter Beth

Series arc

Lily keeps a button after a friend leaves in 1925. Her daughter May and granddaughter Joyce wear versions of the coat; Joyce’s daughter Ruth and her granddaughter Polly inherit competing stories of who deserves credit for making it. In the closing novel Polly returns the coat to use.

The five books

The direction is set. The books are written after you order.

Free novella

The Button Lily Kept

Manchester, 1925. Connie gives Lily a button from her best coat and asks her to look after it until Saturday. On Saturday she boards a train.

Story outline

Story arc and endingConnie has gone to live with her girlfriend in another city and fears a well-meant visit will bring her family after her. Lily stops a search by walking Connie’s mother to the station for a goodbye her daughter agrees to. She keeps the button and writes to ask what colour coat Connie is wearing now.

Emotional payoffLily discovers that loving a friend may require keeping the terms the friend set.

Story focusChildhood Friends

Length30,000 words planned

Book 1 of five

A Coat for the Night Walk Home

1939. May can walk home alone after the late shift. The woman she walks beside is the part she needs to keep to herself.

Story outline

Story arc and endingA rumour puts May’s fellow machinist in danger of being thrown out of her lodgings. May withdraws, leaving her friend to carry the consequences of their relationship alone. Lily recognizes Connie’s button on May’s coat, opens the spare room to her daughter’s partner and starts a walking group for all the late workers. The couple choose to keep their own front door when a room becomes available.

Emotional payoffMay learns that she can guard their privacy without letting the woman she loves walk alone.

Story focusHidden Relationship

Length55,000 words planned

Book 2 of five

The Sleeves That Would Not Match

1965. Sixteen-year-old Joyce sews two different sleeves into a coat she needs for an interview. Her aunt offers to put them right.

Story outline

Story arc and endingJoyce lives with May while her widowed father works nights. She wants a job painting scenery and has promised him a practical trade. May makes her finish the strange coat herself. Joyce wears it to the theatre, showing how it looks like two different costumes when she turns. With her aunt beside her, she tells her father which apprenticeship she has accepted.

Emotional payoffA girl trying to conceal a mistake discovers she can make something recognizably her own.

Story focusSingle Parent

Length55,000 words planned

Book 3 of five

Her Name on the Inside Seam

1988. Ruth is making costumes for a family revue when a visitor recognizes a coat credited to the wrong woman.

Story outline

Story arc and endingThe local exhibition calls May its sole maker. Joyce drew the pattern and a half-dozen neighbours completed it while May was ill. Ruth takes down her first label and hears from women who want their names included and one who would rather be left out. She stitches only the agreed names onto a removable second lining before the revue opens.

Emotional payoffRuth stops using public recognition as a substitute for asking each woman how she wants to be remembered.

Story focusFish Out of Water

Length55,000 words planned

Book 4 of five

The Girl in the Workroom Door

2007. At nineteen Polly comes to clear a workroom after her mother Ruth’s sudden death. A girl is waiting for an appointment Ruth made.

Story outline

Story arc and endingRuth offered to teach a deaf teenager to cut her own formal dress. Polly has none of the skills her mother promised. With the girl choosing her design, Polly enlists Joyce to demonstrate and learns beside her. On the night of the dance they deliver a dress the teenager can fasten herself and reopen the room for a second pupil.

Emotional payoffPolly’s grief moves from protecting her mother’s empty chair to asking someone to sit in it.

Story focusGrief to Hope

Length55,000 words planned

Book 5 of five

Our Coats on the Same Hook

2026. Newly divorced Polly wants to mount the red coat behind glass. Seventeen-year-old Beth has already borrowed it for a march in the rain.

Story outline

Story arc and endingA ripped hem exposes the layers of work inside. Polly initially bars Beth from the workroom, then finds the note Joyce left inviting the next wearer to alter the pockets. Mother and daughter repair it together and hang replicas of the linings where visitors can read them. The real coat goes back on a low hook with room for one more.

Emotional payoffPolly gives her daughter a family inheritance she can actually use, and reserves an empty hook for whatever Beth makes next.

Story focusRebuilding Life After Divorce

Length55,000 words planned

From the free novella into Book 1

Begin with Lily’s button and follow the changing workroom through the five novels. A fresh reader meets each generation at its own turning point.

In the concept package

Includes the author pitch, editable Authorythm seeds and individual AI-generated front-cover concepts. The planned fiction totals 305,000 words.

Included free

Buy the 5-book concept pack and receive the companion lead magnet concept free. Each novel is planned at 55,000 words. The lead magnet, The Button Lily Kept, is planned at 30,000 words.

Included in the pack

Author pitch PDF with the series premise, characters, book blurbs and complete story arcs. One editable Authorythm seed document. 6 coordinated front-cover concepts.