Lena's Fortune

It's 1912. Lena Matthews is from the rough end of Manchester - so rough that she has to be very inventive about how to bury her kith and kin.

So begins the chain of events that takes her into service in the Birtles' family's grand house, and under the attention of the Birtles' son, Henry.

She has everything against her. She's female. She's young. She's poor.

But Lena is a fighter. And there's nowt poor about Lena Matthews.

Times are changing too. Through the support of some strong women - suffragettes and others - she manages to fight off the chains that bind her to poverty and the normal fate of her kind. And through the growing friendship of Henry Birtles as they share adventures and misadventures in the most harrowing of times, Lena learns that sometimes, girls like her can make their own fortune.

Lena's Fortune is the first in the Lena series of historical fiction for tweens, teens and upwards, written by the best-selling author of the Jane Blonde series for girls, Jill Marshall. Here's a heroine of a very different kind ...