September 1953, London's East End. Edie Birch, who believes herself to be a war widow, has finally allowed herself to fall in love again.

Engaged to be married, she is happily planning her wedding day. But fate has a blow in store - her 15-year-old daughter, Maggie, is pregnant. A plan has been hatched to stop her daughter from falling from grace.

Hidden away above an Italian café in Islington until she is ready to give birth Maggie works long hours behind the scenes while her mother Edie feigns pregnancy. The charade works until the baby arrives and hard decisions are to be made.

Can Maggie return home and cope with the pretense of her own child being her brother? And will the truth out once Edie's first husband turns up to demand his rights as grandfather?

Sally Worboyes was born and grew up in Stepney with four brothers and a sister, and she brings some of the raw history of her own family background to her East End sagas. She now lives in Norfolk with her husband, with whom she has three grown-up children. She has written several plays which have been broadcast on Radio Four. She also adapted her own play and novel, Wild Hops, as a musical, The Hop Pickers.