1874: Only days before she is to leave the foundling home where she grew up, Agnes Resolute discovers that, as a baby, she had been abandoned with a small token of her mother: a unicorn button. Agnes always believed her mother had been too poor to keep her, but after working as a laundress, she recognises the button as belonging to Genevieve Breckby, the beautiful and headstrong daughter of a local noble family.
Despite having no money, Agnes will risk everything to find the truth, in a search that will take her from the bleak moors of northern England to the harsh streets of London, then on to Paris, Ceylon and Australia. As Agnes follows her mother’s trail, she makes choices that could cost her dearly. And the question always remains, will Genevieve be capable of becoming the mother Agnes has always hoped for?
