Wanting something better out of life than making match boxes for a pittance, Hetty Huggins dreams of setting up her own business. With the help of friends, she sells hot potatoes on the streets and things begin to look up for her and her younger siblings. But when the tallyman comes calling, once more they are faced with hardship and despair.

18-year-old Irene Angel lives with her parents in a tiny room above the shop where her crippled mother ekes out a living selling pickles and sauces, whilst her charming but feckless father Billy gambles away what little money they do manage to earn. And it is all Irene can do to keep the family together.

Since the untimely death of her husband, young mother Effie Grey has been forced to live on a narrowboat owned by her tyrannical, crippled father-in-law Jacob. In spite of her own despair, she is determined to protect her brother Tom and her baby son Georgie from Jacob's bullying ways - for she is all they have in the world.

On a bitter winter's day, an unnamed girl lies dangerously ill in hospital. When two coarse individuals come to claim her, she can remember nothing, not even her name. According to the men, she is their young sister, Lucy. As her health improves and her memory gradually returns, she realises she has been kidnapped.

When 17-year-old Belinda Phillips falls in love with a handsome Anglo-Indian officer, she knows that he is a man she can never hope to marry. When he is reported missing, believed killed in action, Belinda discovers that she is pregnant. Facing disgrace and ruin, she has no option other than to accept an arranged marriage.

Lily Larkin is the youngest of six and the least important member of her talented, argumentative, temperamental family. With their father dead and their mother a stranger to them, she must stay at home and keep house whilst her elder siblings go out to work. Lily's head is full of dreams but soon her life changes forever.

Phoebe Giamatti lives with her boisterous Italian family in the heart of London's East End. Phoebe's father was killed in gang warfare and she and her family share a deep hatred for the Paxman brothers - whose lawless ways strike terror into the whole community. Despite her English mother's feckless ways, Phoebe is fiercely protective of Annie.

In the quiet of a warm summer's evening, two young mothers are forced to give up their babies. Whilst Kate grows up knowing only poverty and servitude, Josie's world is one of privilege and luxury. Despite the differences in their circumstances, Kate and Josie have been friends since childhood.

Despite her privileged upbringing, Daisy Lennox has always longed to make something of her life. She is drawn to the suffragette movement, but when her father faces ruin they are forced to move to the country and Daisy's first duty is to her family.

Would her life always be one of poverty and struggle? The gripping new novel from the "Sunday Times" bestselling author of "The Best of Daughters."
Circumstances force eight-year-old Sarah Scrase and her widowed mother Ellen to enter St Giles and St George's Workhouse in Bloomsbury. When Ellen dies in childbirth, an independent-minded, spirited Sarah falls foul of Workhouse Master Trigg and his cruel wife. Sarah's ordeal seems to be over when philanthropist and sugar mill owner James Arbuthnot takes her into his home. But her wealthy benefactor reports Trigg and his wife. And blaming...