Little Miss Joy

Great Yarmouth at dawn, a mother waits on the cobbles for her runaway son. This is where Emma Marshall's 1891 novel opens - in that liminal hour between night and day, between loss and hope. Little Miss Joy is the girl who arrives like morning itself: warm, irrepressibly kind, determined to brighten the lives of everyone around her, especially the troubled Patience Harrison and her wandering boy Jack. But kindness exists within systems of cruelty, and Miss Pinckney's household offers cold comfort indeed. Marshall writes with quiet precision about the struggles of youth, the ache of maternal love, and how one small light can push back against harder worlds. It's a novel that understands: sometimes salvation comes in the form of a girl with a big heart and the stubborn belief that joy is worth fighting for.