A heartbreaking story of one child's courage, from the bestselling author of The Orphans of Halfpenny Street.
Left outside the church one snowy night by her dying mother, Ella has never known love. Taken into the workhouse, she is treated with unkindness before being sold to a brutish master in order to care for his wife and child. Ella struggles to do all the work heaped on her thin shoulders and is desperate to get away. When her mistress dies in shocking circumstances, Ella runs away in fear but is caught and once again finds herself at the mercy of cruel and harsh treatment. Can Ella resist giving in to despair and somehow to find the strength to carry on alone...