Generally, the two families, the Bakers and Davidsons, have many difficulties to endure on their life journey. But Barbara has been lying about her circumstances for years and she sees Maureen as the answer to her financial woes. Only then will he be able to declare his love for beautiful Isabel Mears who he means to release from The Gilded Cage her father has created.

As Ben enters the world of singledom with his sidekick Dickie Manse brains in his pants, Ben finds himself on a whole new adventure and has plenty of fun along the way. Cathy is a generous soul, though, and tries to give the young lad a chance to prove himself, but unlike her best friend, David Leyton, something about him makes her more than uneasy. This is one of the reasons why she travels to West Bay, hoping that she would be happy here in the same way as her dad. When the boys started school, she decided to go to college and eventually gained a place at Cambridge University.The result is Jo Cox’s story brought to life through character and reminiscence, photographs and imagination. I believed that how he treated Bridget was appalling, even though she was honest and, in many similar cases, many lies would generally be told and things would be made ten times worse.

Unable to cope with raising his children alone, Robert Sullivan abandons them to others, until he has a change of heart and decides to go back for them. An act that could tear apart not only the Arnold family, but shatter the lives of those around them forever.

And when Cathy’s father Frank Blackthorn brings home a London street urchin and announces this will be the son he and Rita have never had, Cathy despairs of ever winning her parents’ love. One of the students, Betty, is sure it is coming from their neighbour, although the others think it impossible. When both her parents die, Eva Bereton’s uncle throws her off the farm she believed belonged to her parents. Her husband, Ben, killed himself; her brother-in-law was murdered; and her sister, Susan, abandoned her new-born daughter, revealing the baby is Ben's child. Thanks to her near faultless writing, sympathies will lurch from one character to another, and as events reach their dramatic conclusion readers will find it impossible to tear themselves away.