Ambitious Love

Lucy Collins and her brother Sam have lived side by side with the Tanner family all their lives. Lucy and Robert Tanner long for the day when they can marry and the future is full of promise for all three.

Until tragedy strikes when Lucy's parents are killed in a car crash, and Sam is left gravely injured and in need of careful nursing. Sam's girlfriend Patsy refuses to help, and Lucy has little choice but to postpone her wedding. Not only is she left heartbroken at the loss of her parents, Lucy is then devastated to discover that Robert has betrayed her in the worst possible way.

With little money and unable to earn a regular wage, Lucy and Sam are forced to move into the slums of Liverpool. As Sam's health deteriorates and their life spirals into poverty and despair, Lucy wonders if she'll ever find happiness again...

'One last word of warning, my girl. Keep well away from that Hadyn Jenkins.'

In spite of her father's words of warning, Sharon Pritchard decides to give up everything to follow her heart. However, her new life with Hadyn is anything but easy. Although he is handsome and charming, he is feckless and unreliable. And they soon find themselves sinking ever faster into poverty.

The birth of their son should be a joyous occasion, but Sharon fears for him amongst the filth and despair of Tiger Bay. And when Hadyn's errant ways catch up with him, Sharon is faced with a devastating truth. Can her love for Hadyn survive and will she be able to provide a better future for herself and her son...?

Fourteen-year-old Trixie Jackson hoped she had a future to look forward to. But when she is sacked from the local factory she is forced to work as a housekeeper for one of her father's friends - a man she instinctively dislikes.

Kept under lock and key, her life soon becomes a living hell. But in her haste to escape she injures herself and ends up in hospital. However, her troubles are only just beginning. When her mother is involved in a tragic accident and dies, Trixie and her younger sister Cilla are left at the mercy of their bullying father. All too quickly he brings his mistress Daisy into the house. And she will stop at nothing to make the girls' lives utter misery.

It is 1914, and Christabel Montgomery is happily preparing for her wedding when she receives the shattering news that her fianc� has been drowned at sea. Heartbroken, she tries to piece her life together. But she soon discovers she is pregnant, and fearing her parents would throw her out if they knew, she decides to help the war effort by leaving home to become a nurse.

However, she is soon forced to give up her duties. And alone and desperate, she has little choice but to have the baby adopted. Determined to put her sorrows behind her, Christabel hopes to build a better future for herself. But circumstances compel her to return home again. And here she finds her situation ever more difficult. She envies her brother's wife Violet who has just had a new baby. She is filled with remorse and regret about what she has done. She had no alternative, for her sake and the baby's, but she wonders if she'll ever be free from the fateful decision she made...

The only child of over-protective parents, Sarah Lewis yearns to leave home. Studying hard to please them, she earns a place at Cardiff University. Here she is swept off her feet by handsome Gwyn Roberts, but when she becomes pregnant her parents are devastated and turn her from their door.

All Gwyn and Sarah can afford are two squalid rooms in the infamous slums of Cardiff and Sarah soon realises she's made a terrible mistake. Gwyn becomes increasingly distant and when the baby dies in infancy, he leaves Sarah with little choice but to fall on her parents' mercy.

But just when Sarah is starting to pull her life back together again, she is drawn to the charms of Stefan Vaughan and finds herself in trouble once more...

She looked after them. But who would look after her?

When fourteen-year-old Sara Jenkins rescues her baby sister, Myfanwy, from the fire which kills their mother, little does she realise the burden of responsibility she is taking on.

Her father, Ifor, is perceived as strict and moral by everyone in the village. But as Sara struggles to look after Myfanwy and their home she discovers the depths of cruelty he is capable of. Then Ifor remarries, and Sara's new stepmother is a hard taskmaster who considers everything Sara does inadequate or wicked.

When Sara meets Rhys Edwards, nephew of the owner of the bakery where she works, she falls in love for the first time. Finally, she believes, she has a way to escape her father. Rhys and Sara plan to make a life together in Cardiff - but when tragedy strikes Sara finds herself alone there, pregnant and destitute ...

She made a promise, but can she keep it?

When Lucy Patterson promises her dying mother that she'll leave the comfortable home they've shared with her mother's employer, Stanley Jones, to go and live with her Aunt Flo on the other side of the Mersey, she has no idea of the terrible consequences.

Life with the Flanagans in the slums of Liverpool, and Lucy's new job in a factory, are totally different from the world she has known. Mocked by her cousins and the women she works alongside, and terrified by the brutality of her uncle and the unwelcome attentions of her cousin Frank, Lucy is desperately unhappy.

And then one day, the worst happens and Lucy finds herself homeless, friendless and destitute. It seems there's only one person in the world willing to help her. But can she break her promise to her mother? Or should she accept that there's only one place a girl in her situation can go ...?

When seventeen-year-old Belinda Phillips falls in love with a handsome Anglo-Indian officer, she knows that he is a man she can never hope to marry. When he is reported missing, believed killed in action, Belinda discovers that she is pregnant. Facing disgrace and ruin, she has no option other than to accept an arranged marriage with a middle-aged widower, knowing she must keep the secret of her child's birth for ever.

Reluctantly she sends her beloved daughter to a foster mother in Cripplegate, little realising she has entrusted Cassy's care to Biddy Henchard, a woman who runs a notorious baby farm in an area full of poverty and disease. Despite her terrible upbringing, Cassy survives the old woman's cruel neglect. All the while she dreams of a mother she has never known, hoping she will come and save her from her dreadful fate. But when Biddy dies suddenly, ten-year-old Cassy finds herself destitute and with little hope of ever finding the mother she so longs for...

Eighteen-year-old Irene Angel lives with her parents in a tiny room above the shop where her crippled mother ekes out a living selling pickles and sauces, whilst her charming but feckless father Billy gambles away what little money they do manage to earn. And it is all Irene can do to keep the family together.

Billy's addiction soon leads him into trouble. Despite having been brought up by her father to fear and distrust the police, Irene finds herself forced to collaborate with them to save her father from ruin. But Billy's errant ways finally catch up with him and he is imprisoned in Newgate jail. With her mother away from home, a desperate Irene has little choice but to seek help from Inspector Edward Kent - her sworn enemy. For only she can clear her father's name and unite the family once more ...