Colin Forrest is 23, a postgraduate student at Bristol University. When he abruptly ends it with his Albanian girlfriend, her three brothers come over from Tirana, minded to undo the dishonour that has befallen their sister. Their matrimonial persuasiveness includes a sawn-off shotgun ...

He flees to the other side of the country and a summer job as a groundsman at Bubthorpe Pines, a private resort on the Norfolk coast. The owner has a daughter named Amy. Colin has vehemently forsworn getting tangled up again, but the instant he sets eyes on her his fate is sealed.

Amy has other ideas, so too the head groundsman, whose expletive-laden vocabulary is not for the faint of heart. Nor does it help that the resort is understaffed and heading for a financial meltdown. But at least, Colin tells himself, he is a hundred and fifty miles from Bristol. More. And there are nearly seven months to go before his contract ends in October.