When Betsy, a strong and determined spinster of independent means, adopts her motherless nephew, she doesn't mean to fall head over heels in love with the child. When she plucks William from the bosom of his family, she does it out of self-interest, hoping to thwart unwelcome suitors. Her plan to raise William as a gentleman, allowing his respectability to rub off on herself, almost works. But things don't always go to plan. A chain of events is set in train that will bring love, loss and betrayal to Betsy and succeeding generations.

This family saga has shades of Dickens and Hardy in its setting of Lincolnshire in the first half of the 19th century. It is an intimate portrayal of a family grappling with some of the big issues of the times.