As her 40th birthday approaches Charlotte is freed at last from an unhappy marriage, eager to embrace a new future. Blessed with Sam, her 12 year old son, a tight circle of female friends, a comfortable part-time job in a book shop and a new admirer, life is looking up. Yet each step Charlotte makes towards the better tomorrow is thwarted. She puts her house on the market but it won't sell; her girlfriends treat her differently now that she is single; and the perceptions of their husbands shift too, in an even more unwelcome way. And then Sam starts getting in to trouble at school. Besieged by complications, Charlotte realises that she can no longer blame a floundering marriage for her woes. Then a chance revelation and some unwanted memories cause her to reappraise her past. Uncomfortable truths emerge, calling into question the version of her life to which she has clung for thirty years, until help and inspiration arrive from the most unexpected quarter. . .