The Factory Girl’s Song by Faye Godwin

Things go from bad to worse when her father succumbs to consumption. Without his job at the docks, the family can’t get by. They try to survive on the streets, but it’s an impossible task for a destitute mother and her two small children.

Olive embarks on a journey of loss and survival in the brutal setting of Victorian London. She has to survive the deaths of loved ones, the appalling conditions in the slums of Old Nichol, and worst of all, the horrors of a match factory and the deadly diseases lurking inside. 

But one bright thread runs through her story: a kind and handsome boy who gives her bread and whistles just like a nightingale. Might he be the thread by which she can pull herself back up into a better life?