Pat Rosier

It was her mother's idea that forty-year-old Ann should go traveling. Ann's parter has walked out and she's been made redundant from a university job she enjoys, teaching the Romantic poets. She can combine her love of art museums with visits to family members in Washington DC, New York and London, mending frayed connections. A final few family-free days in Paris will round off her trip. Travel will give her a break from well-meaning advice and a chance to think about future directions for her fractured life. After all, she has a willing father to take care of the sale of her once-shared house, and the dog was always more her partner's.

Unexpected "art events" begin in New York, where her experience of the art works she admires take on a whole new dimension. In London, Ann finds that her cousin's competent wife could actually use some help with two-year-old twins, so she extends her stay and her knowledge of young children. A decidedly non-familial encounter with a dynamic librarian in London and an impetuous mistake in Paris mean that Ann returns to New Zealand and her future both shaken and stirred.