An updated version of the Jane Eyre/Cinderella tale, set in Scotland and Iceland in the 1950s and 1960s. Gemma Hardy, left orphaned by the deaths of her mother and father, finds a new home with her mother's brother and his family in Scotland. Unfortunately her uncle's wife and children are jealous of the love and attention he gives to her, and when her uncle dies in a skating accident, quickly make it clear that they regard her as an unwanted obligation.
When the hostility reaches the point of physical abuse it attracts the attention of the local doctor who tries to help by suggesting Gemma apply for a scholarship to attend a private boarding school as a "working" student. Gemma soon discovers that Claypoole School's "working girls" are little more than unpaid servants left to pick up what education they can in their few spare moments, and not expected to qualify for any thing better than servile jobs when they leave school at sixteen.
Gemma is determined to qualify for a university scholarship, but needs a job in order to support herself while she prepares for the entry examinations, so when she leaves Claypoole she takes a position as an au pair or nanny at Blackbird Hall in the remote Orkney Islands. Her one pupil, Nell, has been left to run wild on the island by her uncle and guardian, Mr. Sinclair, a successful businessman in London who only occasionally visits his ancestral home.
Fans of Jane Eyre can see where this is going. . .but with a twist. When Gemma runs away from Mr. Sinclair and Blackbird Hall, she too finds refuge in an unexpected place. Still obsessed by questions about her past and the parents and places she can barely remember, Gemma takes off for Iceland to look for the answers she needs in order to repair the broken promises of the past and face the future with confidence.
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