Set in England in the early 1919, Bittersweet Blossoms is a slowly developing romance story between a working class girl and her mistress.
Our protagonist, Dot Graves, is a working class girl from Manchester. When Dot's father and older brother both die in World War I, Dot takes it upon herself to find work, in the hopes of supporting herself and her mother. A disastrous stint in a factory, however, encourages Dot to leave the city behind her, to seek employment elsewhere.
Dot finds employment as a maid in Bly: a tumbledown mansion deep in the countryside which has fallen into decline. With the old master of the mansion dead, the house is being barely kept together by the harried, harassed Fran, who is struggling to keep her head above the water.
Dot forms an unlikely bond with Fran's daughter, Patience, but the other maids warn Dot to keep her distance. Patience's moods are known to be mercurial, her temperament poor, and she fails to live up to her (rather optimistic) name in every regard.
Dot hears these warnings, yet she pays them little heed. She can't help but pity her mistress, who is consigned to her bedroom day in, day out: left immobile after an accident as a child. Dot wants to console Patience, if she can - but how will Patience react to the kindness of a girl whose status is so far beneath her own?
