As she put the final stitches in her wedding dress, Sarah Love receives news which wrecks her future plans. After initial sympathy, her brother and his wife indicate there is no room for her in the family home, and she must seek a fresh start away from Tullamore.

Within a week Sarah has crossed the Irish Sea, and is lodging in a Victorian building off Newcastle city centre, just a short walk from Harrison’s in Pilgrims Lane - the run-down, knitting and sewing shop, where she will work for reserved spinster, Lucy Harrison.

Sarah finds herself amongst people of different classes, religion and race, and when her Irish nationality is attacked by a medical student in the house; Sarah must discover the skills to survive.

David McGuire, the young manager of the bookshop across from Harrison’s, is immediately attracted to Sarah, but she is too raw to consider romance again. She makes friends with Lucy, who confides her own devastating secrets, and advises Sarah to open her heart again. But when David is offered a business opportunity in London, Sarah tells him to go, and channels her energies into re-building Harrison’s into a thriving business.

A year on, Sarah is achieving great success with her dress designs; when a journey to a fashion show in London suddenly brings back echoes of her doomed romance in Ireland.

She is suddenly faced with the decision of risking love again, or following the same lonely route as Lucy Harrison.