---

Cheshire 1813. A tale set against the turbulent backdrop of Luddite riots and the final years of the Napoleonic Wars. Robbie Enright is a teenage orphan indentured at a remote cotton-spinning mill called Providence, owned by the eminent Samuel Stead. In this highly-successful enterprise reliant on child labour all is not as it seems, however. Several of the female hands have disappeared, supposedly escaping from the mill´s harsh discipline. Robbie, suspecting a terrible secret, is forced to contend with the mill´s authorities, not least Titus Bredlow, the sadistic overlooker. Bright and courageous, Robbie has no resources and only one friend: Ned Wainwright, a notorious Luddite and a wanted man. Against the odds he is determined to expose the truth - not least because he´s fallen in love with the mill´s newest arrival - pretty Mary Pepper.

---

Craven, Miles
Miles Craven is my penname, an amalgam of the name I was born with (Michael Craven) and the name that replaced it (Michael Miles) when my mother remarried. A Yorkshireman now living in Wales, I am the author of five previous novels: An Uncommon Attorney, Eagle and the Lady-Killer, Pride Before a Fall Through Time, A Tale of One Kitty and Gone West.

---