Alice Lightfoot is far too young to be a widow and a grandmother. Perhaps she'd been too young to be a wife, although she was happy enough at the time. Now, nearly three years after her husband's death, the world suddenly begins turning at a disconcertingly faster pace. Over the course of four very disturbing weeks, Alice finds herself dashing hurriedly from one adventure to another, and begins to ask herself whether this is how life is to be now she's on her own. Her daughter expects Alice's life to revolve around her grandchild, Lily, and everyone else seems to think that Alice must be looking for a new husband - after all, she's such a wife. There doesn't seem to be space to decide what Alice wants for herself: does she want a man around, or would independence give her the full life she craves? Alice is a woman at a turning-point, coming out from the protection of a long marriage into the hurly-burly of the wider world. She has far-reaching choices to make and the seriously unexpected to face.