Chrissie, in the twenty-three years she'd been together with Richie, had always believed that he loved her.

He loved their three daughters and their house in Highgate and their happy, lively existence. But if she really was the love of his life, why had he never given her the one thing that would have made her life perfect?

Then suddenly Richie is no longer there, and without him Chrissie's carefully constructed life is in jeopardy.The one big fact she had always tried to keep from her daughters threatens to overwhelm them all. For Richie had still been married to his first wife, the one with a son that he had abandoned in Newcastle.

And now, with Richie gone and the practicalities of wills and money to be sorted out, it is finally time for the two families to face each other ...

Joanna Trollope is the author of fifteen highly acclaimed, bestselling contemporary novels. She has also written a study of women in the British Empire,Britannia's Daughters, as well as a number of historical novels. She was born in Gloucestershire and now lives in London. She was appointed OBE in the 1996 Queen's Birthday Honours List.

Visit her website at www.joannatrollope.com