They say you'll know when you're in love. What if you don't? Alys, a single parent and certified romantic disaster area, is always falling for unattainable men-the latest one being the dead author of a borrowed book of poetry. When she reluctantly returns the book to its rightful owner, she meets Leo. He's very much alive, very much attracted to her and, well, it's love at first sight. Isn't it? After all, she's a single mum with a boring job in a bookshop and, as her daughter puts it, gravity's not going to hold off forever. Leo's got the financial stability she's been craving and he looks like an aftershave advert. So it must be love. Mustn't it? Then there's Piers, whose spontaneity draws her like a magnet. But is it love she feels, or just his infectious love of life? Before she can choose, an unexpected source threatens to lay bare the lie she has been living for the last sixteen years. With happiness close to slipping out of her grasp, Alys is forced to ask herself whether she's ever really been in love at all.