Maggie Wheaton’s life is almost perfect. Confident, bright and popular, she lives with her loving, wealthy parents in a close-knit Cambridgeshire village. But, just days after her sixteenth birthday, her world falls apart: an accident kills both her parents, and then she suffers the ultimate betrayal when she learns a life-changing family secret.

Maggie has no choice but to go and live with her appointed guardian, Ruby Riordan, in the seaside town of Southend, where she sets out on a deliberate path of self-destruction. She pushes Ruby to the brink, and when she finally snaps, Maggie runs away to London to seek fame and fortune as a singer.

But life in the city is not what Maggie thought it would be, and she quickly finds herself caught up in a seedy, dangerous world. Can she save herself? Or if not, will Ruby be able to find her in time?