Gracie Hart

Victoria Wild is only four years old but already knows about heartbreak, having been abandoned by her unwed mother when she was only a baby. Luckily her Aunt Eliza was there to take her in but times are still hard on Pit Lane and while Eliza does her best to make sure there is always food on the table, Victoria bears the stigma of her illegitimacy. Her aunt also fears the day when Victoria will start to ask about her father… But even when Eliza is offered a chance to make a better life for herself and her niece, there are sacrifices to be made. And more trouble is around the corner - in the form of Victoria's mother, Mary-Anne Wild, who is finally coming home not to be a proper mother to her daughter but to exact her revenge on the man who ruined her life…

Can she escape her past? After being orphaned as a child, Mary is taken in by her mother's friend - and ex-prostitute - Nell and raised as her own. But when Nell dies her step-father takes too much of an interest in Mary and she is forced to leave home, landing a job as a bar maid. Only Whitelocks is no spit and sawdust pub but a new gin palace in the centre of Leeds. Mary thinks she's landed on her feet. More so when she catches the eye of William Winn, the charming owner of a glamorous new hotel. But Mary is the daughter of a music hall singer and the adopted child of a prostitute. Will she ever be good enough for a man like William?

Tragedy strikes a small Yorkshire mining town when Sarah Wild's husband dies in a terrible accident. Widowed and destitute, Sarah is forced to remarry to save her daughters, Mary-Anne and Eliza, from the workhouse. But her new husband is a violent drunk and when Sarah tragically dies too, Mary-Anne and Eliza are orphaned. Unable to rely on their drunken step-father, Mary-Anne and Eliza are left to fend for themselves. They are determined to stick together but life becomes complicated when Mary-Anne, the eldest, falls pregnant with the child of a married mine-owner. Scared and unsure what to do, the sisters try to hide Mary-Anne's pregnancy. But such things cannot stay secret for long...

Eliza Wild has come a long way from her hungry childhood days in a rented miner's cottage on Pit Lane on the outskirts of Leeds. Her sewing skills have enabled her to go into business with a wealthy patron and to give her young niece, Victoria, a better life than she and her sister, Mary-Anne, ever dreamed of. There's also Eliza's sweetheart, Tom, who is determined to marry her but having worked so hard to get to where she is, will Eliza take a chance on love when it means she might lose everything she has ever worked for?

When 18-year-old Eve runs away from her small village to start a new life in the city, she quickly discovers that Leeds is not everything she expected it to be. Wandering the cold streets in search of shelter, timid Eve can only find work as a barmaid at the Bluebell Inn - a place her strict parents would never approve of. Serving ale and cheap gin to the rowdy crowd, Eve eventually catches the eye of dashing Sergeant Joseph Oates - but his intentions are not honourable and he will leave her with more than just a broken heart...