A new book, written by a homegrown author, has been launched uncovering the real Wrexham.

Not surprisingly it's called 'Real Wrexham' published by Seren as the latest edition in the 'Real' series. Written by Coedpoeth-born poet and novelist Grahame Davies, this offbeat tour guides you around the town as you've never seen it before, writing with fondness and humour and providing insight into a Wrexham that you never knew existed.

Launched at Wrexham library Grahame's book takes the 'real' idea developed in Peter Finch's Real Cardiff volumes and applies it brilliantly to Wrexham and its surrounding area. He describes the topography, tracks the history, looks down alleys and under stones, and finds out the past developed into the present, and who was once famous in Wrexham and who is famous now.

Wrexham as the 'Eastern Front of Wales' – is pictured in words and images as a place of contrasts. The place where the tide of Saxon invasion rolled in, hit the mountains and stopped. The place where Owain Glyndwr came to get married, where Elihu Yale came to be buried, and where the giants of English football came to be killed. This is a border town where landscapes, accents and identities meet, mingle and merge. A place where mountain meets plain, Wales meets England, and the Mabinogion meets Man U.

The biggest town in North Wales gets the Real treatment from Grahame Davies. Born in Coedpoeth, now much-travelled, he's still fascinated by his hometown. Mixing personal experience and memory with history, topography, journalism, and an unflagging interest, Davies looks beyond Wrexham's workaday image and finds something rather special.

Real Wrexham's real-life characters include obsessive football fans, an ill-fated racing driver, a soccer-player-turned-TV-psychic, two high-society lesbians and a werewolf. Among the subjects it features are a mysterious massacre, a mining disaster, a tour of Wrexham's 'Wild West' and a guide to 'Parallel Wrexhams' worldwide.

If you thought you knew Wrexham, this book will make you think again.
'Real Wrexham' written by Grahame Davies with series editor Peter Finch is published by Seren at £9.99