But her past is threatening to catch up with her and tear her carefully constructed world apart. When her close friend - an ambitious young doctor at the Foundling Hospital - persuades her to hire a nursemaid for her daughter, she is hesitant to welcome someone new into her home and her life. Less than a mile from Bess's lodgings in the city, in a quiet, gloomy townhouse on the edge of London, a young widow has not left the house in a decade. Her life is turned upside down as she tries to find out who has taken her little girl - and why. Dreading the worst, that Clara has died in care, Bess is astonished to be told she has already claimed her. Six years after leaving her illegitimate daughter Clara at London's Foundling Hospital, Bess Bright returns to reclaim the child she has never known. It made me think what if someone abused the system, or there was a mix-up and two women left a similar token on the same day.The new Sunday Times bestseller from the author of The Familiars Two women, bound by a child, and a secret that will change everything. The idea was if they were ever able to come in and claim their children however many months or years down the line, they would name the token they left with their son or daughter, and that way they’d be identified. The second thing that inspired me was the tokens - little objects that mothers would leave with their babies as a sort of secret deposit. It was such a striking image, I ended up using it as the first scene in the book. Because places at the hospital were so highly sought, in its early days the hospital devised a lottery system where the mothers drew coloured balls from a bag, and the colour determined whether or not their child got a place. The Foundling Hospital was established in 1739 by a sailor and philanthropist called Thomas Coram for babies at risk of abandonment, and it was the first place of its kind – essentially a children’s home where parents could leave their babies regardless of background or circumstance. The story idea came to me when I visited The Foundling Museum in London.
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