Liverpool. December, 1905. In the breaking dawn of a raw windswept morning, a new-born baby girl is left at the door of an orphange. So helpless and appealing is the foundling that young Nellie McDowell, the maid-of-all-work, decides there and then to adopt her as her own sister.

In the years that follow, Nellie and Lilac become even closer than sisters in their shared struggle to survive the grinding poverty of their lot. But they cannot lean on each other for ever. Nellie delights in the sweet promise of love - and savours the bitter taste of betrayal - just as the long finger of war stretches out to divide the girls and rob Liverpool of a whole generation of its young men ...