Life is hard for a plain, unloved, urchin like Ruby Brandon. Alone in the world with little to bring her joy other than the occasional orphanage outings to Wood Horse Farm, Ruby has nothing but her dreams to hold on to. 

Forced first into a harsh life of servitude under the philandering lord Hazelhurst and later to the clutches of the lawyer, Mr. Quigley, Demelza knows she must escape before her virtue is compromised. Only her growing love for Nathaniel, the young master of Hazelhurst Grange, gives her strength to carry on, but when clues point to Mr. Quigley’s involvement in her father’s death, she is thrust out of the house.

From an early age, Penelope Fowler dreams of escaping the grip of poverty. She helps her servant mother in the Eglinton House but prays one day she will be free to decide her own destiny.... Young Master Martin Eglinton accompanies his father to Peru and is horrified to discover that his family runs a cruel empire. Seeing the brutality of the fortune he is heir to, Master Martin’s return is wracked with guilt and sickness.

In two run-down houses, at the side of a barren Black Country heath, live six children with no family but each other. Abandoned or orphaned, every day is a fight to find food and keep warm. But they are determined to stay free of the clutches of the workhouse and the horrors that would face them if they were ever torn apart. Dora Parsons lives with her mother, Mary, and her evil grandmother, Edith. Edith’s house may be comfortable and warm, and food is plentiful, but every day, Dora suffers at the hands of her spiteful gran.

A helpless baby is forsaken in a churchyard. This is how life begins for orphan Emma. Unwanted, cast aside, and thrown on the mercy of strangers, she grows up wondering why. And what are the mysterious gifts each year, placed where her cradle was once abandoned? Now blossomed to youthful beauty but shunned by society, the man she loves is forbidden to marry or court her. 

Sophia Morgan and Elsie Carter share a unique friendship that defies the rigid social classes of Victorian London. Sophia is a lady; Elsie, a maid; but they’re bound together by a hardship that overcomes all obstacles. Their two children, Quincy and Ada, are raised in the Morgan house together, and their friendship grows steadily into something more. Simon Morgan, Sophia’s husband, is cruel and heartless. When a tragic death renders Simon completely unreasonable, little Ada’s world is torn apart.

Ten-year-old Jack Larkin has seen more than his fair share of shocking sights, growing up in the notorious Crown Saloon. Broken hearts and broken bones are just a fact of life in a Gin Palace, but for orphan Dolly, the Crown is her last hope. After the death of her mother, Dolly ran away from her sleazy stepfather, Arthur, only to find herself living on the streets. When Jack discovers her hiding in the back yard of the Crown, he persuades his mother, Nellie Larkin, to take Dolly in.

Lady Napier is desperate to give her high-society husband an heir. Devastated by the birth of yet another girl, a secretive plot is hatched to replace the disappointing child with the newborn son of a local village woman.

Blossoming in a Victorian slum is an impossible dream. Hopes and dreams come here to die, not to be born. But Daphne is an unusually determined dreamer. Despite the disappearance of her parents and siblings, she holds to her goal. The workhouse can't stop her. The slums won't prevent her. Disaster and degradation only fuel her intentions.

The untimely death of her beloved sister and the soul-crushing grief of her mother push Daisy to an agonizing juncture – one that leaves her all alone to fend for herself against seemingly insurmountable odds. But Daisy is not a quitter! Far from defeated, her spirit remains unyielding, fuelled by the unwavering belief in her mother's eventual recovery and the promise of a brighter future. Surely her sister's death was not in vain.

Abandoned on the streets by a mother who doesn't want them, Maggie and her young brothers are forced into the cruel confines of the workhouse. When Maggie is forced to leave the workhouse, and her terrified brothers, behind to begin work as a seamstress, she vows to get her family back together.

Deserted by a selfish man, and driven to the workhouse, young Annabel and her midwife mother face a harsh and hopeless future. A critical situation for the workhouse governor then opens a door of deliverance for them both, but it seems that revenge and bitterness hound their every step.

Baby Sophie. Forced to dance for her dinner. Used and abused to feed the greed of those who should have been her carers. Her tiny gypsy feet sore with blisters, until they are big enough to run away and find the love she has lost. Perhaps young Byron Adams, her childhood friend and protector, will seek her out. Their secret childish love, so tragically torn apart, leaves little chance that this could ever happen.

London 1890. Stella Green has lived a hard life. Left alone to care for her sister while her mother works, Stella soon realizes what her mother's work entails, and when she is pushed to start work herself, she runs to the streets of London. As thievery and lies become her daily life, she meets a kind boy who provides food for her, but Stella never sees him again. Worried about her sister, Stella plans to take her away before she is forced by their mother into a demoralizing lifestyle.

Maggie Bailey has not had an easy childhood. Her father, Michael, always too easy with his fists after spending the family’s rent money down the pub. Just sixteen, in love and blinded by promises, Maggie sees marriage to handsome Jack as her great escape. However, she soon finds herself abandoned with a beautiful baby when Jack disappears. Maggie is forced to seek a new life away from the East End of London and finds herself a job at a hotel in Yarmouth.