Slammerkin by Emma Donogue

 

Really enjoyed this novel of a poor girl growing up in London in the mid 1700s, who is thrown out of her family (by her mother - "You have no mother now) and takes up prostitution to save her own life. Then she abandons that life, and heads to the tiny farming village where her mother was born, and tries to make a living as an assistant to a dress-maker. In true "naturalistic" style, though, things don't go well for a woman with nothin and no connections. Vivid writing and a very modern idiom makes this story feel contemporary.