A dazed girl with blood-stained hands. A dead man at her feet. A locked bedchamber in 18th-century London… Turning the Stones is a compelling novel from the first page.

A foundling girl named Em Smith is brought to the Cheshire country home of the ambitious Waterland family, where she serves as a companion to their daughter Eliza. Em is increasingly troubled by the mystery of her identity and the vulnerability of her position. She has charm and wit on her side, but that seems to count for little in a world where servants’ fates are decided by their employers. But when Eliza goes in pursuit of a husband and a fortune in London, a terrifying sequence of events will force Em to prove her mettle and make her own destiny. She finds herself implicated in a horrific crime and must flee for her life. Her frantic escape takes her across country and onto the high seas, where she is at the mercy of the enigmatic smuggler Captain McDonagh. But there is a more potent force drawing Em on: a spirit whose presence she has felt all her life, and whose irresistible power will compel her onwards to a distant shore. And there she will confront the astonishing secret of her origins.