This modern tale explores the themes of friendship, love, honesty and creativity in the setting of two families in a cathedral city. Gerard Woodward’s sensitive prose reveals gradually the shifting dynamics in the marriage of Arnold and Polly that result from Arnold’s brief, but intense, affair with Polly’s friend, Vera. It makes for captivating reading as Arnold attempts to keep this hidden from Polly while dissuading Vera and her husband, Angus, from revealing the truth. Intertwined with this is Arnold’s failure to complete a second collection of poetry after his initial, well-received collection many years earlier, a failure that is exacerbated by a request to Polly from Martin Guerre to publish his poems which Arnold has read and initially rejected, causing Martin to mount a protest outside Polly’s paper making and publishing business. How these dilemmas play out make for a profound re-evaluation of all their lives and Arnold and Polly’s marriage