Sophie Pattison loves books. Along with a dream job at a local book festival, she has a husband she adores; a lifelong best friend, Emma; and a brother she’s always been close to. Which makes you wonder why since Christmas, Sophie has been living alone, estranged from Emma, avoiding her brother, and about to be fired. Now it feels like the only thing she has left is reading. When Sophie rediscovers an author she first read in her 20s, the words on the page reach her in a new way --- becoming both solace and company. Sophie devours every one of the author's novels and begins to dream of meeting her, but knows they never will. But what if she did? What if, by then, the author feels like a friend? What if, for Sophie, it feels almost like love?

Martha Friel just turned 40. Once she worked at Vogue and planned to write a novel. Now she creates internet content. She used to live in a pied-à-terre in Paris. Now she lives in a gated community in Oxford, in a house she hates but cannot bear to leave. But she must leave, now that her husband Patrick has just moved out. There’s something wrong with Martha, and has been for a long time. When she was 17, a little bomb went off in her brain and she was never the same. But countless doctors, endless therapy and every kind of drug later, she still doesn’t know what’s wrong. And she has nowhere to go except her childhood home: a bohemian (dilapidated) townhouse in a romantic (rundown) part of London.