A very contemporary love story, as disturbing as it is absorbing, from a vibrant new voice in women's fiction. When Chloe meets fellow social worker Dan she is instantly and powerfully attracted to him. She is divorced, he is still married, but they begin an affair that quickly becomes intense -- both sexually and emotionally. Chloe's children accept Dan without hesitation and when Dan leaves his wife, Helena, and moves into a bachelor flat it seems only a matter of time before a new family unit is formed. But, with brutal suddenness, their lives fall apart, when Dan is arrested on suspicion that he has abused a child in his care. Vividly charting the eroticism of the start of an affair, its slow, painful collapse under the most intense emotional pressure possible, and two people's struggle to find new ground between them when their sense of themselves has been fractured by events beyond their control, Margaret Leroy reveals herself as an extraordinary new voice in fiction. Writing with passion, assurance and psychological astuteness and a real ability to convey complex and powerful sexual feeling, this is a book which heralds the start of a glittering career.