After a long and happy marriage, Frances is suddenly plunged into mourning. Her international celebrity husband Steven has died leaving her unprepared and vulnerable. At first she is completely submerged in her own loss until, shocked into feeling by the unexpected revelations and private sufferings of others, she is drawn agonizingly into new life - not into perfect happiness but into the sunlight of new hope. Penelope Lively's moving and beautifully observed novel illuminates two terrifying taboos of the twentieth-century - death and grief.'A novel which will extend and deepen th e reader's understanding of how people behave' - Allan Massie,Scotsman