Claire Newbold is not your typical heroine. Smart and sexy, yes, but she's also been known to sneak into a hotel room or two without paying, seduce a teenager in wet bathing trunks, and just check out of things altogether - like her job. And her marriage. No wonder, though. Claire's been careening off heartbreak. Her only child has died. On the discovery her husband has had an affair, she takes leave of absence from her everyday life, and her behaviour drifts from illicit to erratic. No longer a mother, not sure she wants to be a wife, Claire moves from hotel to hotel, basking in the anonymity of travel and forbidden sex. As she struggles to understand her marriage and her life, she surprises herself - and us - by emerging with a new sense of redemption.