Sinéad Moriarty

Alice and Niall used to be lovers, best friends and parents, in that order. Now they're no longer on the same page or even reading from the same book.Ann thought when she and Ken retired, it would be their second spring. Instead, it feels more like an icy winter.Orla is falling in love with boyfriend Paul, but her complicated past makes her unsure if she can ever be intimate with anyone.Three couples find themselves telling a stranger about the most private part of their lives - their hopes, their disappointments, their awkward realisations.

What's another branch on the family tree?

Things are finally looking up for Anna. Fourteen miserable years of marriage to man-child Connor have left her drained and ready for a new start. So when they separate, she couldn't be more thrilled to move in with James, a handsome lecturer who is everything her ex-husband is not: kind, thoughtful, and above all, reliable.

But Anna and James's kids hate living with the loved-up couple and the new set-up. Their teenage daughters - one a studious high achiever and the other a cool rich girl unbothered by grades or exams - have nothing in common. And Anna's wild football-mad eleven-year-old son declares war on bookish James.

Nobody said step-parenting was easy; Anna and James are about to find out exactly how complicated it can be. With exes, new partners-of-exes and money all in the mix, home life is fast becoming a minefield and their new-found happiness hangs in the balance. Do they have what it takes to make their blended family work?