It is 1979 and in a ramshackle cottage in Northumberland fifteen-year-old Ruth is desperate to leave behind the gradual implosion of her parents'' marriage as she pursues her own quest for love and excitement. Fantasies about the son of the local farmer offer a temporary distraction from the rising tensions at home but Ruth soon discovers that the family are coming to terms with a very different tragedy...

Told largely from the darkly humorous perspective of Ruth, Jane Feaver''s novel is an engaging and profound insight into the relationships within families and the nature of love and loss, of grief and grieving.