'One of our best and most captivating novelists' Philip Hensher

The Sisters of Béthanie, a French order of Dominican nuns, dedicate themselves to caring for the outcasts of society: criminals, prostitutes and drug addicts. Lise, an English girl who after the liberation of Paris was employed in one of the city's smartest brothels and rose to become a successful madame, finds her life at a turning point as she joins the Sisters. Master storyteller Rumer Godden weaves a vivid and deeply moving tale of Lise's prison sentence, her conversion and the agonising work among women whose traumatic experiences often outstrip even her own.