Many of Catherine Cookson’s novels became bestsellers throughout the world which made her one of the most popular contemporary women novelists. 

          It is early 1920s and Kate is happily married to Dr Rodney Prince, who has willingly accepted her illegitimate daughter Annie as the eldest child of their household. But there’s a serpent in every Eden, and spiteful rumours about Kate and Annie’s past abound – reviving memories of poverty and indignities they suffered in the Fifteen Streets district they have so recently left behind them. 

          Annie is torn between comfortable middle-class existence offered by Brian Stannard and the uncertain prospects of Terence Macbane, a brilliant mathematician, who comes from the underprivileged world that Annie knew as a child. 

          Like Kate Hannigan, Annie must find the strength and maturity that will enable her to overcome the troubles that threaten to engulf her…