12-year-old wisecracking Gilly Hopkins finds herself shuffled from foster home to foster home until she meets Maime Trotter.

In a staid English seaside town after the Second World War, young Lynda grows up with her widowed father and younger sister. She eventually becomes pregnant by an acquaintance of her father.

Guinevere Pettigrew, a middle-aged London governess, finds herself unfairly dismissed from her job. An attempt to gain new employment catapults her into the glamorous world and dizzying social whirl of an American actress and sing...