Dilly is devastated: with her husband unable to work and four children already at home, they cannot afford to feed their new-born baby. Heartbroken, she heads into the night to deliver her baby girl to the Farthing family at the big house. Having just lost their own daughter to measles, the Farthings adopt the baby and offer Dilly a lifeline: a job as a maid.
This act of desperation will change the lives of both families irrevocably - and the onset of WWI even more so. Sons are taken, love is declared, hearts are broken and terrible acts are committed. Through it all, Dilly does everything she can to preserve her family. But when the chance for true love finally comes, will she choose family over her own happiness?
Years ago Dilly made the devastating decision to give her baby daughter to wealthy local family, the Farthings. She is still living with the consequences of her choice when the daughter she gave away all those years ago turns up on Dilly's doorstep, with a baby girl in tow, begging for help. Olivia has a secret she only feels safe telling Dilly.
Sworn to secrecy, Dilly agrees to help, delighted to be spending time with her new granddaughter and daughter. She can't tell Max Farthing, the man who took in Olivia all those years ago and who Dilly has feelings for. For Max has problems of his own: he's married to Camilla, who has lost leave of her senses. Could Dilly and Max ever come together?
Life is tough on the cobbled backstreet courtyards of Abbey Street, Warwickshire, in the 1840s: boys are destined for the pit and girls for the mill. Despite this, clever, feisty Maryann is happy there - until her mother dies. Her family collapses, leaving Maryann coping with everything, exhausted and lonely. Especially as Toby, the boy she is set on marrying, insists they wait.
When things are at their bleakest, Maryann is offered a lifeline: a position as nanny to the daughter of the mill owner, Wesley Marshall. Though the house is filled with secrets and heartache, there is kindness, too, and to Maryann's surprise she grows close to Marshall. But their relationship has not gone unnoticed and it threatens to unleash a world of problems on them all . . .
One dismal day in 1857, Maria Mundy arrives at Hatter's Hall, the local mental asylum, not as an inmate but as a worker. Here, she is ordered to care for Isabelle Montgomery, the daughter of an influential land-owner. But Isabelle is not insane. She, like many other young women confined within the walls, has been banished here by her family. Hatter's Hall serves to hide unmarried women, in the family way, from prying eyes.
As the women's lives become entwined, they realise the dangers they face. But there is only one way out of Hatter's Hall. The women must escape and there is one man who can help, Isabelle's brother Joshua - who can barely keep his eyes off Maria. Otherwise, there's every chance they might never leave.
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