A riveting account of how one woman defied the rules of society. When her father is killed in a mining accident, in a small Cornish village, Rosaline Soames, is left struggling to provide for herself and her mother, with whom she is eventually forced to move from their beloved cottage by the sea and look for work in a town with more industry, meeting with the social injustices of the time along the way, which she must fight in order to survive.