'It was at Millie's party, on that Friday evening, that she met her second husband, my stepfather-to-be, and thus changed both our lives . . .'
Zoë is delighted when her widowed mother marries Simon, a generous older man who owns a villa in Nice. She is enchanted by the visits to France that follow, but they come to an abrupt end when Simon suffers a bad fall. Finding themselves thrust into uncertainty and surrounded by well-meaning strangers, Zoë and her mother must learn how - and how not - to trust appearances . . .