The prequel to the million-copy bestseller, A Woman of Substance, where, high on the Yorkshire moors, the story of Blackie O'Neill and Emma Harte begins...

Orphaned and alone, 13-year-old Blackie O'Neill must leave County Kerry to find work and put food in his mouth. His only chance of survival lies with his mother's brother, far away in Leeds.

There, amid the noise and bustle, the mills and manufactories of the clothing industry that have made Leeds one of England's most prosperous cities, Blackie's spark of ambition becomes a flame. Working in his Uncle's business, he nurtures a dream of throwing off the impotence of poverty, of building houses and perhaps even of becoming a gentleman.

And then, high on the Yorkshire moors, in the mists of a winter morning, he meets a kitchen maid called Emma Harte. And as the Victorian world gives way to the freedom of the Edwardian age, so a young man and a servant girl seize a chance, against the odds, to build a better life...