When Jessica Price was a little girl, her father, a shoemender, gave her a beautiful new pair of shoes with a sixpence hidden in the toe of one. From the fairies, he explained: 'For luck, and to say you have far to go in life.' But Jess, with her generous heart, makes her own luck, and one instinctive decision that will take her much further in life than she could ever have imagined. Growing up in the aftermath of the Great War, Jess is torn between her hen-pecked father and cantankerous, ambitious mother. For amusement she creates alternative fairy-tales that feature footwear - mixing glass slippers, seven league boots and red dancing shoes - while submitting to her mother's strict Catholic upbringing. Following a disastrous spell as housekeeper to the local priest, she then works happily in the office of her uncle's shoe factory and falls in love with her childhood soul mate and adopted cousin, Wilf, who dreams of being a great artist and sculptor. But it is only when her godchild, Leila, is sent to an orphanage that Jess's path is truly set, allowing her to step into an enchanted future.