The Conway women have survived everything that life in Glasgow's notorious Gorbals slums can throw at them: now, as the 1930s draw to a close and war threatens, they face new disasters...Polly Conway wife of Dominic Manone is bored by her overprotective husband and finds distraction in a dangerous affair. Dominie's gangster father draws him into a drastic venture involving a sinister go-between, Penny Weston, a beautiful and amoral blonde and an unimaginable fortune in forged banknotes. Babs, has her hands full keeping her demanding brood in line and her daft fast-talking husband Jackie out of jail. Only young Rosie appears to have found peace in Shelby's Bookshop in spite of her deafness, until she encounters Kenneth MacGregor, a handsome young policeman, whose intentions may - or may not - be honourable. Polly finds herself threatened from all sides until she is finally forced to choose between her sisters, her husband and her own unfulfilled ambitions and desires.