"An engaging tale of one young woman's struggles against the prejudices, assumptions and deprivations of a grim and ruthless period of our history." – Rosemary Aitken
In the first of her Esther Coad historical fiction trilogy, Beverley Elphick powerfully reimagines life in southern England in the late eighteenth century and a society at war with itself. In times of hardship and shortage, when vicious smugglers hold sway over the town of Lewes in East Sussex, a young servant on the run finds herself caught up in a web of resentment, family feuding and brutal acts of revenge. To double the trouble for Esther, can she turn her back on the abandoned baby in need of care?
'You're an evil woman and I wish you were hanged, just as you deserve.'
'Aye, maybe I do deserve hanging, but you'm come from our seed, girl, and you'll never know whether the badness is in you.'