In 2004 young social worker Sophia Morgan escapes from traumatic experiences at home in the North to train as a journalist in London. On the track of a story she ends up in North London where she falls in love with a tiny house painted lavender, moves in and makes friends with the occupants of her city street. There's the independent Bobbi, aged ten, whose widowed father Sparrow seems to have vanished; the dreamy architect Steve who was born in the street, and the elderly Julia who wears hotpants and still thinks it's 1969. Despite its attractions the Lavender House proves to have a sinister history and, as its secrets emerge, events in gangland London of the 1960s begin to cast their shadows forward to the present day and change the lives of Sophia and her new friends forever.