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About the Book

All they have left is each other...

Life has always been tough for May and Gus Lavender. Their father went away to sea never to return, and then their mother falls victim to the typhus sweeping through Liverpool. Regarded as orphans by the authorities, May and Gus are sent to the Brownlow Hill Workhouse.

Like all workhouses, Brownlow is the last resort for the poor and the destitute. May and Gus will have to rely on each other more than ever if they are to survive the hardships to come...

About the Author

Holly Green writes historical sagas about love and war, and her books are inspired by the stories she heard from her parents when she was a child. Her father was a professional singer with a fine baritone voice and her mother was a dancer, but they had to give up their professions at the outbreak of World War II.

Holly is from Liverpool and is a trained actress and teacher – her claim to fame being that she gave Daniel Craig his first acting experience!

Holly is married and enjoys spending time with her two delightful grandchildren.

Prologue

‘They’ve got to go! I’ve told you. We’ve got five of our own. We can’t cope with any more. They’ll have to go.’

May could hear Mr Johnson shouting from downstairs. Then she heard the door bang as he went off to his work on the docks. She shifted her position in the narrow, crowded bed. Jenny’s elbow was sticking into her ribs and Maisie’s foot was right by her nose.

A sound reached her, a sniff followed by a half-stifled whine, like the cry of an animal in pain. Gus was crying, and trying not to be heard. She eased herself out of the bed and wrapped her shawl round her shoulders. The boys’ bed was close by and by the smell of it one of them had wet himself – not Gus, her little brother never did that. She bent down and scooped him up in her arms and he buried his face in her shoulder, snuffling. She moved over to the one rickety chair and sat down with him on her lap.

‘Don’t cry, Gus. It’ll be all right. You’ll see. We’ll be all right.’

She wanted to believe it, but it was hard. She had been three when their father disappeared, ‘lost at sea’, and Gus just a baby. That was nearly three years ago. They had never seen much of him, because he was a sailor and away from home most of the time. She had got used to being without him; but she had seen her mother grow thin and tired, taking in washing to keep them from starving.