Fortune's Song - Tapa dura

A heartwarming new story from the author of Painted Lady and Firestorm Wales, 1860: Megan Price is distraught when her beloved father dies in a pit accident shortly after her eighteenth birthday. Her situation becomes even more distressing when her mother, Dilys, at her wits' end to keep her six children clothed and fed, agrees to marry the lazy, feckless Morgan Jones. Within weeks of the wedding it is clear that Morgan will never provide for his new family in the way that Dilys had hoped. And when he turns to violence in order to force his eldest stepdaughter to maintain his supply of alcohol, Megan realises something has to be done. The only person who can help is her grandmother, however, and she lives in London, several days' journey away. When an unexpected source provides Megan with the money to get to the capital, she jumps at the chance, though the city overwhelms her a little at first. But there are plenty of friendly faces willing to help her in her quest - including sweet-faced baker's boy Tom Bradley...

Donna Baker worked as a civil servant, a boarding-school matron, a Tupperware dealer and (happiest of all, she says), for short time in a fish and chip shop. She started writing feature articles for a local newspaper before progressing to short stories (of which she has written several hundred) and later, romantic novels.