Sarnia is the Latin name for Guernsey, and here in the bustle of nineteenth-century enterprise and optimism lives Louise Penford. Her father's favourite, but despised by her mother, Louise is second in line to an older brother—so whatever success she has won't be handed to her.

We follow Louise as with relish and determination she moves from headstrong youth, to wife, mother, and woman of business. She proves forceful and shrewd in the friends and professional associates she chooses, but there is tragedy too, more than one person's fair share, and it is how Louise responds to and copes with her personal highs and lows that gives us one of Wallis Peel's most compelling novels.