Alone and poverty-stricken, sixteen-year-old Zéphyrine is quickly lured in by the ideals of the city's radical new government, and she finds herself swept away by its promises of freedom, hope, equality and rights for women.But she is about to be seduced for a second time, following a fateful encounter with a young violinist.

...a thrilling, daring love story... Known for bringing neglected historical periods to life for her teenage audience, Syson's passionate account of the lives of four youths during those dramatic seventy-two days in 1871 is a riveting yarn.

The first time she heard the gulls in Paris - screeching, mournful, wheeling overhead near the river or the canal - she imagined they were calling her back to Brittany. Their voices had a way of sounding human. Where she came from, they called them soul birds. Drowned sailors, like her father, or so she used to think. But the truth was that nobody was calling Zéphyrine. Her brothers might miss her a bit, and maybe the dog, but her mother and stepfather certainly didn't want her back. They'd be happy to forget she'd ever existed. It was Gran'mère who told Zéphyrine the reason why. Her father had been a sailor - that was true enough - but her mother hadn't even known his name. That was why she'd left her bastard daughter in Paris, so she could finally be rid of her shame.Gran'mère had wanted to warn her, to protect her. She was worried it would happen again. But shame was part of Zéphyrine's inheritance. What was the point now of pretending she didn't know shame already?She tugged off her cap to reveal her hair, combing out the tangles with her fingers. She let her shawl fall a little from her shoulders, and pulled open her blouse to show some flesh. Then she ducked her head and raised her arm and had a quick sniff. Could be worse. Don't think about it, she told herself, not quite believing what she was about to do, reaching inside herself for a bit of the old bravado, the spirit that made her grandmother shake her head and tut. It was hard to find. She felt so numb.Nothing mattered now except the money. Up ahead she saw a church, its curved back turned towards her: the Notre-Dame-de-Lorette. It's too late for you, the building seemed to say. Too late. You're falling already. You've got nothing, and nothing to lose. Three more prostitutes passed, red petticoats flashing, ribbons at their necks. They stared right through Zéphyrine. They didn't even see her as competition.On she walked, her footsteps mechanical, without direction. She barely knew she was moving her legs. They took her towards the vast cross so recently carved from the city's ancient alleyways, towards its axis, its meeting point. Its stomach. Without realising it, she made for the biggest marketplace in France, to put herself up for sale.