When Daisy Buchan is 25, her beloved mother dies, and as she is reeling from this trauma, she is shocked to be told by her father that she is adopted - that her real mother was a poor young teenager from Cornwall. She does not know who her father is.

Eventually Daisy finds out more about her mother, Ellen Pengelly, a farmer's daughter from a remote Cornish village, and as the layers of her family history are stripped away Daisy is horrified by what she learns. She is taken on a journey back to the past, a journey that uncovers a gripping story of innocence corrupted, and a family torn apart by greed and misery ...

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'Come here and hold my hand, darling. I hate to sound melodramatic, but I think I'm on the way out.'
Daisy was just leaving the bedroom as she had thought her mother was sound asleep. Hearing these words, she wheeled round in shock and dismay.
Loma Buchan had cancer. She had fought it bravely for over two years with radiotherapy, a mastectomy and countless alternative treatments, always believing she would get better. But two months ago she had been told by her specialist that the cancer had spread throughout her body. She had resigned herself to this and refused any further hospital treatment, because she wanted to spend her last weeks at home with her husband and children.
Daisy was beside her mother's bed in a trice. 'I'll call the doctor,' she said, her heart pounding with fear.
Loma smiled up weakly at her daughter. 'No, darling, there's no point. I'm not in any pain and I feel really calm. Just sit with me.'
Daisy was appalled - she couldn't just sit there and watch her mother die without doing something. Yet to argue with her now seemed awful too. So with her free hand she gently stroked her mother's head, while she considered what she should do.
Loma had lost her lovely honey-blonde hair after the radiotherapy, and the new growth was white and as soft as a baby's. Her face was gaunt because she had lost so much weight and even her blue eyes had faded to a pale duck-egg colour.
It wasn't fair. Daisy thought, that her mother should be singled out for this. She was only fifty and she'd been such a striking, robust woman, always fashionably dressed, known to everyone for her vivacious and warm personality. She was the sort of indomitable woman who could tirelessly supervise a school fete, then at the end of a day which would have exhausted anyone else, invite all the helpers home for an impromptu party. She would still be dancing and laughing as her guests finally left. Yet miraculously by breakfast the following day the whole house would be tidied and cleaned as if nothing had gone on there.
'I must call Daddy,’ Daisy said after a few moments' thought.
'Certainly not,' Loma said surprisingly firmly. 'He has an important meeting this afternoon and I don't want him rushing home through the traffic in a panic.'
'But I must do something. Let me call the college and get the twins home.'
'No, not them either, they'll be home soon anyway.'
Daisy had given up her job a month before when her mother became too ill to be left at home alone. This was not an act of martyrdom - Daisy loathed her job, just as she had loathed practically every one she'd ever had, and there had been dozens. Housekeeping and caring for her mother was something she liked and was good at, and she used to think that she could handle any situation or emergency. Yet she knew she couldn't handle this one alone.
'I've got to phone the doctor at least,' she said resolutely.
Loma turned her head away in a stubborn attempt to try to dissuade her. Daisy picked up the phone by the bed regardless and quickly phoned the surgery to tell them she needed a doctor immediately.
‘That wasn't necessary, I only need you here,' Loma said weakly, as Daisy put the phone down. 'Besides, there's something I want to talk to you about.'
'I will get a real career,' Daisy said quickly, assuming that this was what was on her mother's mind. She was twenty-five and she knew her parents despaired because she was feckless and lacking in ambition. 'I thought I might join the police force.'
Loma smiled. 'You'd be hopeless at that, you don't like taking orders and you're so soft you'd be bringing all the villains home for tea.'
'So is it Joel, then?' Daisy asked.
Joel was her policeman boyfriend of a year's standing, the longest she'd ever gone out with any man. Her parents approved of him, and she thought perhaps her mother was going to urge her to marry him.
'No, not Joel either, you are perfectly well able to make your own mind up about him. I wanted to talk about your real mother.'
Daisy looked at her mother in horror, 'I don't want to talk about her now,' she said.
'Well, I do,' Loma said. 'What's more, I want you to find her when I've gone. I think it will help you.'
Her words made tears well up in Daisy's eyes. 'Nothing and nobody will ever replace you,' she said passionately. 'You are my real mother. I don't want anyone else.'
She had known she was adopted since she was a tiny child. Loma and John had told her that she was extra special because they had chosen her, while ordinary parents got no choice at all. Even when she was five and the twins were bom - a miracle because Loma had been told she was sterile - nothing changed. Daisy never felt her parents loved them more, in fact she imagined they'd got Tom and Lucy just to please her. Not once in her twenty-five years had Daisy shown any interest in her birth mother. She knew she was a Buchan, whoever she was bom to.
'You might think that way now, Dizzie,' Loma used the family family nickname lovingly, 'but I know from experience that a death in the family can bring up so many unexpected emotions and questions. I believe finding her would help you through all that.'
Daisy didn't know what to say. Lorna wasn't one to make a suggestion like this without having thought long and hard about it. Since she knew she was dying she had organized everything, from her funeral service to filling the freezer with ready-cooked meals. There was nothing morbid about any of her arrangements, she'd been this way all her life, always thinking ahead, making life easier and more comfortable for her family. Yet Daisy couldn't imagine why her mother thought that finding a woman who had given her child away so many years ago would help her grief.
She stared out at the view of the back garden and there, as everywhere in the house, was more evidence of Loma's planning and patience. It was beautiful, the herbaceous border just coming into its full glory, a bank of blue, pink and mauve plants. Honeysuckle had all but covered the roof of the old Wendy house where Daisy and the twins had spent many happy hours as children. Yet Loma hadn't led it slide into decay or removed it once there were no children to use it. Each spring she planted flowers in its window-boxes and cleaned it out. Daisy knew that if she were to go in there now, she'd find the little pots and pans, the chairs and table all still arranged carefully.
Of course Loma had hoped that one day there would be grandchildren playing in it, and Daisy's eyes filled with tears as she was reminded that her mother wouldn't be there to play her part in weddings and babies' birth and upbringing.
'I'll look for her if you really want me to,' Daisy said, keeping her face turned to the window so her mother wouldn't see her tears. 'But whatever she's like, she'll never take your place.'
'Come and lie down with me,' Loma said.