The heart-breaking new novel from one of the
UK’s favourite storytellers
Ruth has been living
the life of a wealthy widow on the Costa Blanca. But the
money has run out and she’s going to need to provide for
herself and her seven year old daughter Penny, an
unwanted product of her short and loveless
marriage. She ups sticks and returns to Margate,
England determined to set up her own business, at any
cost. Penny is the last thing on her mind as she throws
herself into her new venture, and the poor little girl
is left in the care of others, distanced from the cold
and uncaring mother whose eyes are on the dirty tricks
she’s prepared to play to get what she wants. Lorna,
Ruth’s old friend, becomes everything to Penny, offering
the love and attention she should have found with her
own mother. For Lorna, Penny is the closest thing to the
daughter she has always longer for. But Lorna harbours a
devastating secret. Ruth shocks everyone by packing
Penny off to boarding school, with little regard for
seeing her again. When tragedy strikes, Lorna’s
cousin Maureen, a feisty ex-stripper from London, comes
into Penny’s life. It’s time for Penny to make her own
way in the world, and she bravely decides to move to the
big city. She’s thrown into the buzzing, grimy but
thrilling streets of Soho and a life not so far removed
from her past as she might have thought. However,
there’s a dark side to the new life she is living, and
it becomes clear it wasn’t just Lorna who had been
keeping huge secrets. Huge shocks and difficult times
await Penny. She’s forced to make the most difficult
choices. Can she make it in her new life, alone? Just
how much is she her mother’s daughter, and what happens
when Penny falls for the wrong man?
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