Barbara Trapido

Katherine, a suburban girl, is introduced to bohemian, academic life when she meets the eccentric Goldman family. She falls for their odious son Roger - despite his parents' warnings - and sure enough, first love quickly leads to heartbreak and sends her fleeing to Rome. Then ten years later, she returns to find love where she least expected it.

Dinah and her sister Lisa are growing up in 1950s South Africa, where racial laws are tightening. The apparatus of repression rolls on, but Dinah finds her own way. As we follow her journey through childhood and adolescence, we enter into one of the darker passages of twentieth-century history.

Ali Bobrow is an other-worldly single parent with a fraught nine year old daughter, a malevolent 'ex', and an underused artistic talent. Then she meets Noah Glazer, a solid man of science, who walks into her over-populated life bringing good sense, order and security. But ten years on, Ali is drawn back into the complexities of her past: an old lover, two ex-spouses, and a colleague from clown school, all help to rock the boat.

Ellen's sister Lydia is knocked down and killed outside Jonathan Goldman's London flat whilst he is on the train to his Oxfordshire home. He has just said goodbye to the gladiatorial Sonia, to return home to his wife. All these characters' lives become twisted together through bonds of passion, friendship and bereavement.