Polly Perkins and her brother have never really liked each other and when, in a fit of spite, he flicks a fishbone at her and accidentally blinds her in one eye, it seems to Polly that he has blighted her entire future. But life carries on in1930s Rotherhithe and Polly, like the other tenants of Penn’s Place, is soon caught up in its daily struggles. Having started as a tea girl at Bloom’s Fashions, she is delighted to be offered a job in the office. There her friendship with the prosperous Bloom family grows, in particular with Sarah and her handsome brother David. Meanwhile Polly finds herself being courted ever more insistently by Ron, Sid’s best friend and, Polly suspects, his partner in crime. When, in frustration, Sid points out that, disfigured by her accident, Polly is lucky to get a suitor at all, she decides to accept his proposal of marriage. But, as the country finds itself in the grip of war, it becomes clear that Sid and her husband Ron have jeopardized Polly's future once more.

(Paperback, ISBN: 0747238456, £6.99)