First published 2014
Rose, Nellie, and Vivian Marsh scrape by in their cramped cottage beside the river in East Anglia. The year is 1919, and their world shifts when floodwaters rise and a stranger named Joe Ferrier arrives. Twenty years later, Birdie Farr pulls pints in a London pub until she discovers she's pregnant. At twenty, unmarried and desperate, she turns to her mother Nellie for help. Nellie sends Birdie to her sister Vivian, and together they arrange for the baby girl to be adopted. Birdie eventually marries Charles and has a son, but she cannot forget the daughter she gave away. Her determination to find the girl sets off a search that will shake her marriage and threaten everyone she cares about. Two generations of women navigate the choices that poverty and circumstance force upon them, learning that some decisions echo across decades.
Genres: historical-fiction, 20th-century, adoption, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, second-chance
Setting: East Anglia, London
Period: 1919, 1939
327 pages · Paperback · Orlando