Cecilia Banks has a great deal on her plate. But when her son Ian turns up on her doostep with the unexpected consequence of a brief fling she feels she has no choice but to take the baby into her life. Cephas's arrival is the latest of many challenges Cecilia has to face. There is the matter of her cancer for a start an illness shared with her novelist friend Helen. Then there is Helen herself whose observations of Cecilia's family life reveal a somewhat ambivalent attitude to motherhood. Meanwhile Tim Cecilia's husband is taking self-effacement to extremes & Ian unless he gets on with it will throw away his best chance at happiness. Cecilia however does not have to manage alone. In a convent in Hastings sits Sister Diana Clegg who holds the ties that bind everyone not only to each other but to strangers as yet unmet. As events unfold & as the truth about Cephas is revealed we are invited to look closely at madness guilt mortal dread & the gift of resilience. No one will remain unchanged. ' Frank courageous & entertaining. I felt better for reading it' Margaret Drabble