Meet the Boyd family and the empty nest–twenty-first-century style. Ben is, at last, leaving home. At twenty-two, he's the youngest of the family. His mother, Edie, an actress, is distraught. His father, Russell, a theatrical agent, is rather hoping to get his wife back. His brother, Matthew, is struggling in a relationship in which he achieves and earns less than his girlfriend. And his sister, Rosa, is wrestling with debt and the end of a turbulent love affair. With her characteristically perceptive observation and spot-on characterisation, Joanna Trollope explores the dilemmas that face both parents and children as they cope with finding new ways to live, both with and without each other.