Sheffield in the 1860’s was a place of vitality and change, a male dominated culture where there was pride in workmanship but many lived in squalor. Violence, hypocrisy and abuse were present in society and in the domestic setting where most women had little independence. The book tells the stories of two very different young women who seek to shape their lives in this environment. They suffer from their mistakes but both re resilient, refusing victim-hood, until fearful disaster, partly natural and partly man-made, sweeps lives and certainties away.