Meg just wants her family to be together at Christmas. But her mother's illness gets worse every day and her sister is off doing god knows what.
So when Meg loses her job in the bakery she doesn't know how they'll cope. Luckily, she knows Frank, the owner of a local patisserie, who offers her a job. But Meg isn't suited for fancy cake and frills.
All she wants is to feed her family and make them proud but, as winter takes hold, it feels like everything is stacked against her.
Can she make a success of herself before Christmas?
Brought to you by Penguin.
Can these young coal-miner's daughters survive on their own?
Tragedy strikes a small Yorkshire mining town when Sarah Wild's husband dies in a terrible accident. Widowed and destitute, Sarah is forced to remarry to save her daughters, Mary-Anne and Eliza, from the workhouse. But her new husband is a violent drunk and when Sarah tragically dies too, Mary-Anne and Eliza are orphaned.
Unable to rely on their drunken step-father, Mary-Anne and Eliza are left to fend for themselves. They are determined to stick together but life becomes complicated when Mary-Anne, the eldest, falls pregnant with the child of a married mine-owner.
Scared and unsure what to do, the sisters try to hide Mary-Anne's pregnancy. But such things cannot stay secret for long. . .
Brought to you by Penguin.
Can she find somewhere to call home?
Victoria Wild is only four years old but already knows about heartbreak, having been abandoned by her unwed mother when she was only a baby. Luckily her Aunt Eliza was there to take her in but times are still hard on Pit Lane and while Eliza does her best to make sure there is always food on the table, Victoria bears the stigma of her illegitimacy. Her aunt also fears the day when Victoria will start to ask about her father...
But even when Eliza is offered a chance to make a better life for herself and her niece, there are sacrifices to be made. And more trouble is around the corner - in the form of Victoria's mother, Mary-Anne Wild, who is finally coming home not to be a proper mother to her daughter but to exact her revenge on the man who ruined her life...
A gritty, heart-warming saga perfect for fans of Dilly Court and Maggie Hope
Brought to you by Penguin.
From rags to riches?
Eliza Wild has come a long way from her hungry childhood days in a rented miner's cottage on Pit Lane on the outskirts of Leeds. Her sewing skills have enabled her to go into business with a wealthy patron and to give her young niece, Victoria, a better life than she and her sister, Mary-Anne, ever dreamed of.
There's also Eliza's sweetheart, Tom, who is determined to marry her but having worked so hard to get to where she is, will Eliza take a chance on love when it means she might lose everything she has ever worked for?
