An absorbing tale of adventure and true love from the bestselling author of Chocolate Girls

Young Maryann Nelson is devastated at the loss of her beloved father. But more heartache is to come when her mother marries Norman Griffin, the local undertaker, in an attempt to better herself and her family. Though on the surface a caring family man, Norman is not at all what he seems - as Maryann and her sister Sal soon discover. Unable to turn to their unsympathetic mother for support, the girls are left alone with their harrowing secret. And for Sal it is too much to bear . . . The chance of a new life opens up for Maryann when she befriends Joel Bartholomew. Aboard his narrowboat, the Esther Jane, she finds herself falling in love with life on the canal as she is swept away from Birmingham and all her worries. That is, until Joel's feelings for Maryann begin to change, awakening all the old nightmares that she had thought were long buried . . .