Dot's social position in Embridge, a small seaside town in Dorset, defines her lifetime's achievement, so that when her openly despised son-in-law becomes a celebrity overnight, making her a laughing stock among those she has always considered her friends, her humiliation is complete. Shrewd enough to realise that she can't expect much help from her alienated daughters, her ex-husband, or her stepson, she prepares to face it out alone, and is therefore very much shaken when she finds that she isn't alone at all, and that help will come from some very unexpected places. Further west, the granddaughter of Dot's late first husband - best-selling novelist Elizabeth Ballantyne, whom due to a family feud Dot hasn't seen since she was two - is trying dump her arrogant, conceited boyfriend, Paul, who is proving difficult to dislodge, and the already complicated Nankervis family tree is due for a high wind through its branches when their interests, and those of the family in general, converge at a family christening in Cornwall ...