Hearts of Glass

England, 1908: Alice Dalton never intended to rebel against her aristocratic parents. But after her father’s failed attempt to arrange a marriage for her with Edmund Cutler, son of a wealthy stockbroker, she flees the family home humiliated – and determined to make a life for herself as an independent woman, however hard that might be. When a chance opportunity leads to her taking a position as a stained-glass artist’s apprentice, Alice is stunned when she meets the man she’ll be working for: the hateful Edmund Cutler.

July, 1914: In their sunlit Hampshire workshop, Alice Dalton mixes paints for the stained-glass artwork she and Edmund are working on, pausing only to joyfully cradle the soft swell of her stomach. But the looming war threatens her hard-won happiness. A knock at the door announces the arrival of Victor, her estranged brother, returning after six long years in America. But her elation at being reunited is short-lived as she realizes he still hasn’t forgiven her for her part in the heartbreak that sent him abroad.

Hampshire, 1916: Alice traces her hand over the cold glass of the window as the pale morning light slips into the empty room. The pain of loss is worse than a physical one. Reminders of Edmund are all around her. The coldness of the sheet on the other half of the bed. The unrelenting silence in the cottage when her stepdaughter Lottie is at school or tucked up asleep at the end of another day. Keeping up with their stained-glass commissions takes every ounce of her strength, and as Lottie becomes more withdrawn, Alice worries desperately about how best to care for the troubled girl.