Marion Hunt is a 29-year-old single civil servant who has just bought a brand-new apartment is Dublin's Smithfield and needs something to while away the long cold winter nights. So she decides to start a book club.

She quickly gathers around her a group of disparate individuals. There is Nick Barry, a young writer who has been mauled by the media but is determined to produce a critically acclaimed novel. There is Liz Broderick a young widow of 33 whose husband Tim has been killed in a tragic road accident and whose friends are telling her she has to get out and meet new people.

There is Robbie Gray a 45-year-old accountant whose wife has just left him for another man after 16 years of marriage. There is Christy Grimes a pensioner from Phibsboro and his wife Ellie who is recovering from a stroke but is determined to recover. And then there is Alan McMillan, a successful lawyer and an old boyfriend of Marion's who will stop at nothing to get her back.

As the book club gets under way, strange things begin to happen...