When Sam, who can barely read, discovers an old newspaper clipping just before his eleventh birthday, it brings forth memories from his past, and, with the help of a new friend at school and the castle they are building for a school project, his questions are eventually answered.

When the privileged Margaret Hale's father uproots the family to take work in the northern mill town of Milton, she is shocked by the dirt and gruffness of the people. But she reserves her highest contempt for the charismatic mill-owner, John Thornton.