Sarah is 42 and has already been widowed for a little over two years, since Henry's tragic death in a car crash. Having moved from London to a medium-sized town in the country with her late husband, doctor Henry France, she's now left alone, coping with their daughter, Clare, and her mother, Eleanor, between whom she is regularly torn!

Clare, only just 18, is fast becoming an adult, discovering the world, and finding both herself and her responsibilities. Sarah herself is struggling to get used to the unwanted freedom that Henry's death has thrust upon her; and her elderly mother, somewhere in her mid-70s, is as interfering, oblivious and cantankerous as ever.

Caught between the two extremes, Sarah struggles - with the help and advice of her gay best friend and employer, small bookshop owner Russell - with parenting, life as a single woman, but above all else: not turning into her mother!