Summers, to Anna, had always meant the Presbytery, the mellow old stone house in Provence where her mother, the formidable Domenica, lived. Now that Anna's marriage to Jeffrey was all but over, she thought that she had herself well organised, dividing her time between her riverside home in London, her two teenage children and her career as a gilder and restorer of antiques. And then there were her summers in France - a chance to eat and drink magnificently, to sit in the sun and to recharge the batteries. She hardly realised how narrow and lonely her life had really become.

But one summer her brother Gio, an antiques dealer in Paris, brought down a new friend to the Presbytery. Patrick, a handsome television director, suddenly opened up Anna's life in a new and wonderful way, offering her a wholly unexpected chance of happiness. But she did not immediately see that others might not share her joy, and that her beloved brother Gio could have quite different ideas about Patrick and the future.