Jewel Libby is a widow left to raise her four-year-old daughter, Becky. Jewel works hard from sun up to sun down in a sewing factory in Birmingham, England in 1884 making barley enough to feed her daughter. Jewel in forced to leave Becky in the care of an older woman in her building who watches several children, including babies. Jewel, released from work early, walks home one day to find Becky outside holding hands with a man who has a reputation for “paying too much attention to little girls.” Jewel does everything she can to get away from the man stocking her daughter, including moving to the other side of town and finding a new job. When the man finds them, Jewel is forced to leave the only city she has known under the cover of night and move to a small town where everybody knows everybody.
The Vicar of her old church in Birmingham is a friend of Vicar Andrews of Gresham Green. When Vicar Andrews hears Jewel’s story, he quickly agrees to take her in and help her any way he can. But before Jewel arrives in Gresham Green, Vicar Andrews becomes sick so his stepdaughter, Aleda Hollis, takes Jewel in.
Aleda lives in a cottage on the outskirts of town that affords her the privacy she seeks as she pursues her writing career. Aleda has been known to lock herself in her cottage for days, even weeks, without visiting with anyone to concentrate on writing her stories. What Aleda didn’t count on was how much she begins to rely on and enjoy Jewel and Becky. What Jewel didn’t count on was that good and evil can exist anywhere, even in small towns.
I read this book without realizing that there are three books that can precede it. The author wrote three books known as The Chronicles of Gresham Green. While I enjoyed this book immensely, I think I would have enjoyed it more had I started with The Chronicles of Gresham Green first.
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