Susan Brief is blond, attractive and just thirty-four. Her relatively short life is full of tangled relations: Her son, Fred, at thirteen is on the edge of, er, everything; her ex, the boozy diehard Derek, is on the loose and after her. Then there's her zany neighbours and her little 'surprise' daughter, Rosie.

Enter Rachel, Susan's adoptive sister. She's bright, beautiful well-built and... black. Heads turn in the little Durham pit village of Upper Kissing. Old attitudes, old politics and old clothes are thrown aside. And in the maelstrom of emotions that follows, the Briefs - Mackams to the core go for the scoreline and find unexpected happiness.

Beginning in a sauna and ending in a temple, this hugely enjoyable saga of modern British life reflects what's strangest and funniest about us: our hankering for the past, our unease about the future, and our laughter along the way.

Jon Scott lives in County Durham, and is originally from Northern Ireland. As someone from a working class background who was the first in his family to go to university, he is well placed to write this novel. He is twenty-something and single, but is seeking a woman to become his wife.