A compelling and poignant tale of motherhood, deception and loss in eighteenth-century London, this bravura novel from the author of The Familiars is suffused with the squalor and inequality of the Georgian metropolis.   

Two women, bound by a child, and a secret that will change everything...

London, 1754. Six years after leaving her illegitimate daughter Clara at London's Foundling Hospital, Bess Bright returns to reclaim the child she has never known. Dreading the worst, that Clara has died in care, Bess is astonished to be told she has already claimed her. Her life is turned upside down as she tries to find out who has taken her little girl - and why.