Ruth Blackison has fallen madly in love with Ned Haskell and he with her. They are taking the plunge and marriage is a few short months away. But the problem with true love is that it doesn't involve just two people. There's a whole new family of in-laws to meet, get to know and get on with. And then there are the friends... Ruth has enough problems learning to understand her unpredictable mother-in-law, let alone like her. Is the woman merely difficult, or is there something more dangerous here? Then she meets Ned's close-knit circle of friends whose past relationships seem more tangled than most. She quickly realises that without the friends' approval, it could be a short engagement. At a time when she should be looking forward to a happy future, Ruth begins to get caught up in the past, and all the things that happened to Ned and his friends years before. Is she imagining things? Has Ned really changed? Or are the friends still bound up by the complex, shifting balances that have the power to tear people apart?