One Step at a Time

London 1934 Amy Carter's great frustration is that at nearly fifteen she still can't read or write very well. She is intelligent, but has trouble with words. How is she going to survive when her father is hanged for murder and her mother dies, leaving her alone? Ben Scott, an artist she has met only once, finds her at this crucial time and takes her back to his landlady, who gives her a home. The people living in the house become her family, and, step-by-step, the past is put behind her. In 1939 she marries a young doctor, John Sterling, and her happiness is complete. Then war comes to tear her family apart. John is killed during an air raid, and Ben is reported missing. Is she destined to lose the two men she adores? And how many painful steps will it take to regain her happiness? Amy Carter is just 14 when she has to leave school to look after her sick mother. When her father is tried and hanged for the murder of a local man and, shortly after, her mother dies, Amy is left with no one. Shunned even by former friends and neighbours, Amy is found at her mother's grave by artist Benjamin Scott, who met Amy just once, read about the family's difficulties and tracked her down. He takes the girl to his lodgings in Chelsea, where Amy - with Ben, his fellow housemates, and the kindly landlady, Mrs Dalton - finds a real home for the first time.