In 1890 England, Sophie Anderson is a young woman who has to find work as a governess after her father commits suicide and leaves her with nothing. Devastated by the loss and then her uncle's refusal to help her, she is sent away to work for a family in a small village where she is treated like little more than a servant.

Outcast and downtrodden, she ignores Victorian society's attitudes and falls in love with the village blacksmith.

"You will be ruined if you marry this man," everyone told her.

But they had already turned their backs on her, isolating her to a life of service as a governess. What does she have left to lose? Will she marry him anyway?

Sophie's Story is the first book in a historical saga of love and loss, failure and success during social and economic changes that occurred between the end of the nineteenth century and present day.