When a family is pushed from its home, the sense of injustice never dies... A spellbinding novel of love, loyalty and of the ties that bindThe Coles have lived in Middlemere, an isolated tenant farm, for half a century. When, in 1942, the family are threatened with eviction, Martha Cole and her small son, Jem, flee the house, while Martha's husband, Sam, and their eight-year-old daughter, Romy, barricade themselves inside Middlemere. When Sam brandishes a shotgun, the police are called in, and Romy sees her father shot dead.Years later, Martha Cole has remarried and she and her family are living in much reduced circumstances. Romy, now almost nineteen, is quick, clever and single-minded. She has never forgotten - or forgiven - the violence and injustice of the Coles' eviction. She schemes to restore the family fortunes, to rescue her mother from drudgery and to protect her brother Jem, a charming scoundrel who is always in trouble. Most of all, she longs to escape the poverty and narrowness of her surroundings. A chance meeting with Mirabel Plummer, owner of the exclusive London hotel, The Trelawney, is about to change Romy's life forever . . . A compelling novel of passion, revenge and redemption from the bestselling author of THE DARK-EYED GIRLS and WRITTEN ON GLASS.[back flap]Judith Lennox was born in Salisbury, Wiltshire. She reads English at Lancaster University and now lives in Cambridgeshire with her husband and three sons. She is the author of seven previous highly praised and topselling novels: THE SECRET YEARS, THE WINTER HOUSE, SOME OLD LOVER'S GHOST, FOOTPRINTS ON THE SAND, THE SHADOW CHILD, THE DARK-EYED GIRLS and WRITTEN ON GLASS.