Diane Allen

In 1871, young Daisy Fraser is living in the Yorkshire Dales with her family. Her sister Kitty is set to marry the handsome Clifford Middleton. But on the eve of the wedding, Clifford commits an act that shatters Daisy's happy life. When further tragedy strikes, Daisy sets out for Leeds where she encounters poverty and hardship but also friendship. The key to happiness may not be as far away as she thinks...

It is 1870. Railway workers and their families have flocked to the wild moorland known as Batty Green to build a viaduct on the Midland Railway Company's ambitious new Leeds to Carlisle Line. Among them are three very different women, but when tragedy strikes, their lives are bound together, and each is forced to confront the secrets and calamities that threaten to tear their families apart.

1912 in the Yorkshire Dales: After the death of their mother, Alice Bentham and her brother Will, get work with Lord Frankland at Whernside Manor. But before they know it, Alice and Will’s lives become entwined with those of the Franklands' and nothing will ever be the same again.

From birth, Polly Harper seems destined for tragedy. Raised by her loving grandparents on Paradise Farm she is unknowingly tangled in a web of secrecy regarding her parentage. Her grandparents send her to work in a dairy, where she becomes instantly drawn to the handsome Matt Dinsdale, propelling her into the depths of forbidden romance and dark family secrets.

Charlotte Booth lives with her father in Crummockdale. When Joseph Dawson enters their lives, both Charlotte and her father decide he's the man for her and, within months, Charlotte marries the dashing mill owner from Accrington. But when his business becomes bankrupt, it becomes apparent that Joseph is not the man he pretends to be. Heavily pregnant, penniless and heartbroken, Charlotte is forced to face the reality that life may never be the same again . . .

Twenty-one years have passed since Charlotte Booth fought to keep Ferndale Mill and her home at Windfell Manor following her traumatic first marriage. Now, highly regarded in local society and happily married to her childhood sweetheart, Archie Atkinson, she seeks only the best for their children, Isabelle and Danny. But history has a habit of repeating itself when Danny's head is turned by a local girl of ill repute, despite his promise of marriage to the far more respectable Harriet Armstrong. 

Meanwhile, the beautiful and secretive Isabelle shares all the traits of her biological father, the notorious Joseph Dawson. And when she announces that she is to marry John Sidgwick, the owner of High Mill in Skipton, her mother quickly warns her against him. An ex-drinking mate of her late father who faces bankruptcy, Charlotte fears his interest in Isabelle is founded more upon self-preservation than any notions of love. What she doesn't realize is how far he's willing to go to protect his future . . .