Desperate for a new life, one woman engineers a cunning deception that quickly spins out of control... Angela Harper's life has never been simple. She's an orphan who spent her childhood in foster homes. Her handsome, charming husband Billy can’t hold down a job. And they’re both stuck in a grimy London flat with no prospects for their future beyond the periodic welfare check. That is, until Ange concocts a lie that will change their lives.

Her con targets the wealthy, twice-divorced businessman Fabian Ormerod, whom, with the approval of her husband, she is determined to trick into a very advantageous marriage - with a quick divorce to follow. Gillian White's cutting, sardonic style unfurls in The Beggar Bride, as she needles England’s stiff upper crust, the titans of business, and the idle poor below them.