It was an unconventional wedding speech. Aunt Grace announced, “Francesca’s life is going to change utterly when she’s forty…” Now Francesca is forty. She’s isolated in the mists of early motherhood, her elegant hair is falling out, her passionate marriage is falling apart. And darling Aunt Grace is dying. Francesca’s twin, the bold Camilla, sweeps in and offers to keep house so Francesca can visit her aunt. “Ask Aunt Grace about her eccentric prediction – is it a lottery win, a spiritual epiphany?” Francesca walks away from her life and returns home – to a mother obsessed with respectability, the ghost of long dead Naomi and her unforgettable, unresolved love affair with Alex Flood – their romance was the talk of the country. It’s been sixteen years since she last saw him, they meet at Aunt Grace’s deathbed, the old memories surge back, suppressed feelings are reignited.