Wood Green, North London, November 1913. The storm clouds of war gather overhead while one brave girl fights to save her family.... After her mother dies, Livvie Bone knows it's down to her to protect her younger siblings from their drunken father. But life on the worst street in London is dark and dangerous, and one night she needs protection herself. When the mysterious Joe Hunter steps in to help her, Livvie's fascinated by him, in spite of his unsavoury reputation.

'Campbell Road was home to the most notorious criminals: thieves, prostitutes, fraudsters – every sort of rogue and vagabond drifted through this slum.’Life was tough … but so were theyAlice Keiver is a sensitive girl, growing up in one of the roughest parts of North London. As the daughter of an alcoholic mother, and niece of an abusive uncle, she dreams that one day she and her baby sister will escape their rotten surroundings.Alice’s father, Jack Keiver, works day and night to provide for his family.

Manchester, 1867. Mara longs for a peaceful life free of violence and poverty. But she has married into the O'Hara family, who have a reputation for their drunkenness and quick tempers. Her eldest stepson, Conrad, is the worst of them all - a brute and a criminal who makes Mara's life a misery. But then Conrad is accused of a crime he didn't commit, and Mara is the only one who can prove his innocence. Perhaps this is her chance to finally free her family from his toxic influence.... 

Winnie Berry had been the landlady for the Battersea Tavern for over 25 years and loved every minute of it. Her husband Brian preferred the quiet of the upstairs, but Winnie liked to be in the thick of it: the atmosphere and the company. While her son has taken after his father in more ways than one, she can't help but love him - David might not be able to hold down a job, but she would do anything to keep him safe. After all, once upon a time she'd made a mistake - something she'd do anything to put right.

In Western Australia, Sarah chuckles as she describes her final will and testament—which will throw the metaphorical cat among the family pigeons—whilst sharing a bottle of wine with her neighbour Thomas as they sit on the terrace of her luxurious waterside home. Six months later, at the age of 95, she peacefully passes on. Married and widowed three times, Sarah has had a great life as a successful businesswoman. Now she's left her Australian house to her two great-nieces—on the condition that they live in it together for a year. 

In two run-down houses, at the side of a barren Black Country heath, live six children with no family but each other. Abandoned or orphaned, every day is a fight to find food and keep warm. But they are determined to stay free of the clutches of the workhouse and the horrors that would face them if they were ever torn apart. Dora Parsons lives with her mother, Mary, and her evil grandmother, Edith. Edith’s house may be comfortable and warm, and food is plentiful, but every day, Dora suffers at the hands of her spiteful gran.

Abandoned by their parents and left to fight for themselves, headstrong Rosalind Carey has no choice but to take charge of her younger brothers and sister in Devonshire’s grand Rockwood Castle. But their once much-loved home is crumbling like the family that lives within it. Living hand to mouth and desperate to provide for the estate that depends on them, the Carey family are one debt away from ruin. Until the day comes when the dashing Piers Blanchard appears on their doorstep from Cornwall, claiming he is Rosalind’s distant cousin and that Rockwood Castle is his.

When 12-year-old Ada Cooper's elder sister, Connie, goes mysteriously missing, Ada and her younger brother, Sam, are forced to fend for themselves. Connie's job at the match factory was the only thing keeping the family together, and when the rent man, Mr Winterbourne, threatens them with internment at the workhouse for non-payment, Ada and Sam must flee. A costermongering family come to their aid by providing Ada with a barrow of her own to sell fruit and veg by day and flowers outside the theatres by night.

London, 1942. Charlotte Fenimore is back home on a week's leave from the Women's Auxiliary Airforce. She had planned for a week of rest and recuperation. She hadn't planned to fall deeply in love with an irascible detective called Dan Chalmers, a wounded hero of Dunkirk who believed no woman would ever look at him again.

Warwickshire, 1875 Emerald Pritchard has lived a privileged life with her parents and her younger sister, Abigail, in the stately Astley House on the outskirts of Nuneaton. But all that suddenly changes when her father disappears leaving the family in debt. They are forced to throw themselves on the mercy of Emerald's uncle who begrudgingly allows them to live in a small cottage within the grounds of his farm. 

Daddy’s girl Samantha Reynold hadn’t bargained on unexpectedly needing to step into her father’s shoes and take over the family casino business. Pampered and spoiled, Sam knows nothing about the rules of this glamorous but deadly new world. She has a lot to learn and even more to prove. But she won’t let her family down, especially when it looks like they could lose everything to their biggest rivals - the Stoker family.

London’s East End. Life for Hope Daniels in the public house run by her parents is not as it seems. Pa drinks and gambles, brother John longs for a place of his own, sister Violet dreams of a life on stage and little Alfie is being bullied at school. Silas Quirk, the charismatic owner of a local gentlemen’s club and disreputable gambling den her father frequents, has his own plans for Hope. When disaster strikes, the family lose everything and the future they planned is snatched away from them. Secrets are revealed that make Hope question all she’s ever believed in.

Three very different women work together at Cadbury's Bournville factory, and their lives become entwined by war and work: and a child called David. Edie, the main character, marries young to escape her unhappy family home. Widowed at 19 and, after losing her child from the marriage, she faces the war grieving and lonely. Then one night during the Blitz, an infant mysteriously abandoned during the bombing is handed into her care.

It is 1937, and Alice, Edith and Marg continue to face hardships every day, growing up on one of the poorest streets in Blackpool. Penniless, their friendship has helped them survive this far, but it'll take more than that to see them through the dark days ahead. Alice is coping with a violent father. Marg is left reeling after a dark secret about her birth comes to light and threatens to destroy the life she knows, and Edith is fighting to protect her alcoholic mother from the shame of their neighbours and keep her brother on the straight and narrow. 

Scarborough, 1880. Young Jeannie spends her days watching her mother and the other harbour girls sitting at the water's edge - mending nets, gutting herring - and waiting for her friend Ethan Wharton to come in on his father's fishing smack. As she was growing up, Jeannie always expected to marry Ethan, who is loyal and dependable. But then she meets Harry - a stranger who has come to visit from Hull for the day - and she falls for him.