In the final chapter, Lily reflects that if she hadn’t been sent back to the hospital, she wouldn’t have committed the crime.

I enjoyed this book and quickly became engaged with the character of Lily both striking and complex but also the supporting cast who are all vividly drawn.But when Nelly was told who their visitor was, she remembered her and the grief she had felt when she had had to take her back to Coram’s. You can probably tell as I’ve ranted on so long that I loved the plot, engrossing and so damn emotionally draining.

Its founder and governors were kindly, god-fearing men; and wealthy women, like Lily’s benefactress, Lady Elizabeth Mortimer, helped to support such benevolent institutions. To become a subscriber to Slightly Foxed: The Real Reader’s Quarterly Magazine, please visit our subscriptions page. Abandoned by her mother in a London park in 1850, newborn Lily is saved by young policeman Sam Trench, who carries her to the city’s Foundling Hospital (built in real life by 18th-century philanthropist Thomas Coram). It's a testament to the strength of Tremain's writing that Lily's suffering never felt melodramatic or trite or cliché (and that I kept wanting to pick up this book and read rather than do any of the other half-dozen things I should be doing).

The whole story about the lady making religious figurines who Lily thinks could be her mother was also pointless.