Liverpool, 1847: seventeen-year-old Delilah Shaw is the eldest of eight and suddenly the one in charge. Her mother and a brother have died tragically, her father is disabled after an accident at the docks, and when the family can no longer afford its home, she is forced to send two younger sisters to the workhouse. She plans to sell flowers and earn enough to bring them back, with help from Irish siblings Bridget and Frank and a dockworker called Abraham. But her father’s drinking is worsening, her siblings are growing weaker and the clock is ticking. Dickensian in its hardships and warm in its loyalties, with a heroine who has been handed a family and no instructions.
