When Maggie's husband dies in the bed of another woman, she surges out of their stately home. She heads East, towards family wealth, touching down in Bangladesh. A beautiful young man, Sepen, welcomes her at the airport, and shepherds her through the culture shock of his country. As their relationship becomes sexual, he starts to crack her English veneer. When she becomes ill, she needs him. When she grows strong again, she needs him even more. Maggie journeys on to Thailand. In releasing her husband's ashes into the River Kwai, she steps clear of her past. It's too damn stupid to think of Sepen as part of her future. Surely it is! This is an intricate and revealing novel which plays with age, culture, loss and desire to reveal the journeys across those boundaries.