title: The Time of Her Life
author:  Jeanie London 
description: Jeanie London writes romance because she believes in happily-ever-afters. Not the "love conquers all" kind, but the "we love each other, so we can conquer anything" kind. Jeanie is the winner of many prestigious writing awards, including multiple <em>Romantic Times BookClub</em> Reviewers Choice and National Readers Choice Awards. She lives in sunny Florida with her own romance-hero husband, their beautiful daughters, and a menagerie of strays.
zlib_text: 
  
  
  Jean Fullerton is a native Londoner and was born in the East End within the
  sound of Bow Bells. Until she was five her family lived in Wapping, alongside
  the Thames, and then moved to Stepney. She is a trained nurse and teaches
  healthcare and nursing. Jean’s husband is a Church of England vicar, and his
  parish includes the site of the 2012 Olympic Games. She has three daughters.
  Jean Fullerton’s first novel, _No Cure For Love_ , won the Harry Bowling Prize
  in 2006.
  
  
    
  
  [www.jeanfullerton.com](http://www.jeanfullerton.com)
  
  
  
  
  
  **_One_**
  
  
  On an April evening in 1832, with her shawl wrapped tightly over her abundant
  auburn hair, Ellen O’Casey ducked out of the cold on the Whitechapel Road in
  East London, and into the tradesman’s entrance of the Angel and Crown.
  
  
  Thank goodness she had bought a half-hundredweight of coal from the merchant.
  Even now, in March, The two rooms in Anthony Street she shared with her mother
  and her daughter, Josie, could be cold, and her mother was still 