Ella Stuart has worked hard to achieve the perfect work-life balance: a high-flying career as a paediatric doctor, a charming husband, charity fundraiser Jackson Garrett - and in urbane PR consultant William Ashfield, a passionate, worldly lover.

William is equally devoted to Ella, his mistress of eight years, and to his faded, troubled wife, Beth. He knows he could never choose between them; and is eternally grateful he's never been asked.

When tragedy strikes out of the blue, Ella's carefully ordered life is abruptly derailed. Struggling to cope as the chaos spirals out of her control, unable to play the accommodating mistress any longer, Ella examines her long relationship with William, and finds it wanting.

But her personal nightmare has repercussions for everyone linked to her. For William, who has to face his own demons and make the toughest decision of his life. For Beth, who is just beginning to emerge from the depression that has stolen the most precious years of motherhood.

And above all for Cate, William and Beth's seventeen-year-old daughter, whose transition from girlhood to womanhood is suddenly set to be a baptism of fire.

' a] superior tale of immorality and lust...Stimson's skill ensures we are gripped to the finish. Warmly recommended.' Daily Mail