Sally Swann thought life couldn't get much worse. Then a single coin changed hands. A dismal cottage in the heart of Bolton, Lancashire, has been Sally's prison since Joseph Goden 'bought' her from the workhouse as his wife. A drunkard and bully, Joseph rules her with a rod of iron, using fists and threats to keep her in check.

Eighteen-year-old Moll Chambers works her fingers to the bone doing all she can to support her family. With an ailing father and a wayward mother, Moll is the only one who can look after her siblings, Bo and Sissy. But Manchester is an increasingly dangerous place to live, overrun with a ferocious rivalry between gangs of so-called "scuttlers: " young men and women bent on a life of violence and crime. And they have her brother in their sights. Soon even Moll can't protect Bo from the lure of the criminal underworld. Then the scuttlers looked her way. When she herself falls for the leader of...