Bittersweet Blossoms

Set in England in the early 1919, Bittersweet Blossoms is a slowly developing romance story between a working class girl and her mistress.

Our protagonist, Dot Graves, is a working class girl from Manchester. When Dot's father and older brother both die in World War I, Dot takes it upon herself to find work, in the hopes of supporting herself and her mother. A disastrous stint in a factory, however, encourages Dot to leave the city behind her, to seek employment elsewhere.

Dot finds employment as a maid in Bly: a tumbledown mansion deep in the countryside which has fallen into decline. With the old master of the mansion dead, the house is being barely kept together by the harried, harassed Fran, who is struggling to keep her head above the water.