BookList - Denise Perry Donavin
Salem Street is just a step above the worst slums of Bilsden, England. In Jacobs' novel, Annie Gibson is born in 1820 on Salem Street to a pair of millworkers, ecstatic at the birth of their daughter and their move up in the world. Jacobs traces Annie's heartening story from her impoverished childhood through her departure from Salem Street to fulfill her dreams of opening a dressmaker's salon for the gentry. Along the way, many births, deaths, and crises slow her ambitious journey out of poverty. Classic historical fiction with a charming heroine who eschews love in her quest for success.