In Depression-era America, everyone’s running away from something. Some people join the circus to escape.

Jacob Jankowski hitches a ride on a freight train and in that instant his life changes.

By morning he’s landed a job with the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth.

By nightfall, he’s in love.

Charlotte O’Keefe’s beautiful, much-longed-for, adored daughter Willow is born with Osteogenesis Imperfecta – a very severe form of brittle bone disease. If she slips on a crisp packet she could break both her legs, and spend six months in a half body cast.

After years of caring for Willow, her family faces financial disaster. Then Charlotte is offered a lifeline. She could sue her obstetrician for wrongful birth – for not having diagnosed Willow’s condition early enough in the pregnancy to be able to abort the child. The payout could secure Willow’s future. But to get it would mean Charlotte suing her best friend. And standing up in court to declare that she would have prefered that Willow had never been born…