Celie Marlow first begins working in the Latimers' kitchen when she is only ten, learning her art from Mrs Harper and becomes a cook of enormous talent Celie knows her place, and longs only to run a kitchen as skillfully as her mentor until she falls in love with the wrong man - Richard Latimer, eldest son of the family Then their lives change With frightening swiftness, Celie is driven from the Latimer home and finds unexpected success in a new venture with Mrs Harper - then loses everything once more, and she finds herself walking the streets of Victorian Liverpool penniless and desperate