Canongate Books Ltd The Reluctant Sinner

This is an enthralling saga of rags-to-riches on the eve of the First World War.September, 1914. Eighteen-year-old Daisy Gilbert is the star seamstress at Mrs Evans' prestigious gown shop in Southampton.Hard-working and well-liked by customers, she has also started to take on a few private clients to supplement her family's meagre finances.Daisy's ambition, ultimately, is not to marry her sweetheart, Jack, who works at the docks, but to set up her own dressmaking business.When her beloved father, ill with TB, is advised a stay at a private nursing-home, Daisy determines that she will find the money to pay for it.So a suggestion from one of her clients, the flamboyant Mrs Cummings, that she should work evenings as a waitress at the Solent Club, one of the town's upmarket brothels, is tempting.Though her mother is horrified, Daisy takes up the offer, reassured that she will only be working behind the bar.Young, innocent and beautiful, Daisy proves popular with the Club's clientele.But with success come further temptations, and danger too from some of the town's less-reputable inhabitants.Will Daisy be able to care for her father, and preserve her own virtue?