In the first novel, we are introduced to Jessica Anne Khalid, twenty-three years old and destitute. Abused as a teenager by her father, and seeking sanctuary from a torrid life at home, she falls under the spell of Pakistani cab driver Mohammed Khalid, marries him at seventeen and, at eighteen, gives birth to daughter Leila. She is yet to discover that Mo is not only a member of a child sex-grooming gang, he is also a drug dealer and inveterate gambler.
Over time, Mo’s nefarious activities get him into serious debt and, with it, trouble. Fearing for his life, he flees to Pakistan, taking four-year-old Leila with him and leaving Jess with all his debts. With no family, and now faced with eviction and bankruptcy, Jess abandons what little she has left and disappears.
After two or three weeks spent sleeping rough, she finds a job with accommodation in a canal-side pub. She assumes a new identity as “Alice”, but the lecherous landlord, Dave, has designs on her, and his unwelcome advances turn eventually to sexual assault. Traumatised by the behaviour of yet another man, she flees, unaware she is pregnant with twins.
While Jess’s life lurches from crisis to crisis, seventy-year-old retired army officer Peter Jeffries is still coming to terms with the twin tragedies of losing his young wife to leukaemia and the disappearance of his daughter, Lisa. Lisa had found it impossible to cope with her mother’s premature death and sought solace by taking a gap-year in Nepal, but goes missing after being caught up in a severe earthquake. Peter blames himself for Lisa’s disappearance, believing he failed to show her the love and support she needed. Having travelled to Nepal in a futile bid to find her, he now presumes her dead.
When Jess and Peter meet by chance, she unwittingly takes on the role of surrogate daughter, unaware that she bears a striking resemblance to Lisa. Peter believes he has been blessed with a second chance and resolves to make amends for his failings with his own daughter. When Jess confesses her terrible past and he realises that she too has lost someone she loves, Peter secretly resolves to find Leila and return her to her mother.
Three years pass and, weakened by long-term illness, Peter receives the news that Leila has finally been found. But before Leila can be reunited with Jess, Peter dies, leaving Jess and her daughters everything in his will, unaware that his own daughter, Lisa, is in fact still alive.
So now, read on …