Ireland, 1924. For 13-year-old Nora Doyle every day is a fight for survival in Ballybun, the rural Irish village she calls home. Each night, as she feels the cold wind blowing through the cracks of her family’s cramped cottage, Nora longs to escape the poverty surrounding her and find her place in the world.

When she meets Edward, from the grand house that looms over her tiny village, she feels an unlikely kinship that is impossible to explain and as she grows from an impulsive child into a beautiful woman, Nora spends every moment she can with him. But Edward holds the key to a devastating truth about Nora’s own family that will change her life forever, leading Nora away from the village, to the bright, dazzling lights of Dublin and the charming baker Joe Lynch.

But sorrow is never far away for an Irish village girl and when tragedy strikes, Nora must return to Ballybun and face up to the truth that drove her away. There, she faces an impossible choice. Can she deny her roots, or will she always be the girl from Paradise Alley?