Irene Carr

Alison Grant is just five when her father is sent to prison for murder. Her mother blackens his character and when she's taunted at school for being a jailbird's daughter she feels ashamed of him. Then Doreen Grant abandons Alison and the little girl goes to live with her grandmother, the housekeeper at Bellhanger House. And when she becomes friends with the owner's nephew, she tells him her mother is dead and her father is a ship's captain. It is the beginning of a new life of betrayal and deception, which continues when Alison leaves Bellhanger House after her grandmother's death. She begins to dream of owning a chain of cafes and becoming a lady. But her family's shaming secret will come back to haunt her once more.

An independent, bonnie lass, Katy flees the drunken wrath of her father when her mother dies and gets a job in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. But when her young boss Charles pays her attention, his parents have the Navy ship him to China and Katy is forced to work for a dishonest haulage company where she makes enemies. Rescued by a glamorous but evil conman whose promises of fidelity put her in the family way, Katy once more finds herself on the streets. Trouble lies ahead as the father of her child, the fiancee of her new-found love and the winds of war, all conspire against her future happiness.