A story of the extraordinary lives of ordinary people. Set between Victorian Liverpool and Dundee and the battlefields of the First World War, three families face the perils of life on the economic cliff-edge, where a single misstep can send lives plunging out of control. Crossing a century of dramatic change, their journey begins in the aftermath of the slave trade, moving through the era of Empire expansion and Industrial Revolution to a time of religious strife and global conflict. The world they navigate is one fraught with hazard in which exploitation, zealotry and violence lead to rape, prostitution, fraud, and murder. At its heart, two indomitable women - lifelong friends - choose very different paths as they strive to hold their worlds together, and to survive.