Amy Pearson"s family is desperately poor -- even by the standards of Edwardian Liverpool -- but they have each other. Until Amy is torn from her home by her rich aunt, a woman obsessed by religion and snobbery who wants a girl she can mould as she wishes. Clever and pretty, ten-year-old Amy is perfect for her purposes. It is the beginning of a long journey for Amy, as she desperately searches for the family she lost, and a home where she can be free at last from her aunt"s possessive tyranny. But she will have to endure a forced marriage and a tragic war before she can at last find what she seeks.