[close] Joe and his little sister Annie escape from a farm where they are treated like slaves to make their way to Manchester in hopes of reuniting with their mother. They get help from a kind stranger and a mysterious dog-woman before finding a place with a traveling fair. Trouble is, Annie fits in with the fair—especially once they learn she can speak to the dead—but Joe doesn't. He leaves her behind to join a street gang, but living rough is more dangerous than he thought, and he ends up being taken in by a rich man as a social experiment on educating the poor. The food and housing aren't enough to contain Joe, though, and he flees to the employ of a reformist newspaperman, vowing to find Annie again. In true Victorian fashion, this epic novel is sure to grip readers from the first page. [close]