When her wealthy parents died, Katie Courage discovered she had been adopted by them. Katie set out to find her brothers and sisters.
Unknown to her stepmother, Doctor Susan Leighton, one of the first women doctors, had turned part of Leighton Hall into a hospital for sick children. Little or no payment was expected from the patients.
In the year 1842 – orphans, Mary Harvey and Sally Johnson were sold to an unscrupulous showman, Seth Morgan. Morgan had in his possession a strange statuette of crimson cat. This cat had strange powers and under it’s influence the girls performed a fearless balancing act.
When Welsh cattle drover David Penrhos was injured, his two children, Nan and Gwyn, took over the task of driving his fine cattle to the Michelmas Fair in London. But they had an evil rival, Black Dylan, whose campaign against them grew daily more savage. He’d even tried to stampede his own huge herd, and trample the two youngsters underfoot.
Polly Fletcher and her friend Derrick were searching for Polly’s brother, Toni. who had left plague-stricken London with a troupe of actors.
Peggy Rigby, a talented young musician, was tricked into leaving home and go to live with the mysterious Madame Vengali in Fleet Manor, high on the deserted cliffs on the Dorset coast. Also in the house were three other girls, all in the power of Madame Vengali.
Unable to pay a bill at a London hotel in Victorian times, orphan Flora Denver slaved in the hotel laundry to pay off her debt. She had found out the secret of the Firebird medallion that she wore. It was the badge of the exiled free people of Irovina, a land now ruled by a tyrant. Flora suspected that Jeanette, a chambermaid at the hotel, was secretly working against the exiles.
Thirteen-year-old Flora Marchant had been sent to Stonemoore School by her guardian, Silas Slater. Flora soon discovered that the school was a cruel home for poor unwanted children, run by a woman called Mrs Blackley, who was secretly in league with Silas.
Madame Danelli was a greedy woman who trained children to sing and dance for money, so when she discovered that her newest recruit could see into the future, she saw a way to, make her fortune. Tara was a homeless orphan whose eyes glowed with a golden light when she used her gift, and because of this, she had been named Golden Eyes.
In 1789 the French Revolution was tearing France apart. Using the widespread disorder to their advantage, Paul Martin and his friends had doll-maker Rene Philipe executed in order to take over his business. Rene’s daughter, Estelle, planned to avenge her father’s death using an amazing, life-size, clockwork doll to terrorise Martin’s gang. The doll, however, seemed to be taking its own revenge…
