It's January 2008 and the credit crunch is biting. Sam and Laura Diamond and their friends are circling forty and feeling a lot less certain about life than they were in their twenties. Laura wants to work part time and have a third child while Sam dreams of giving up his job as a script-writer and having a vasectomy. Their oldest friend, chef, Jonathan Skeet, is about to hit the big time with a TV series and cookery book, but can't control his roving eye. Back in the countryside, his wife Hannah is finding distractions of her own, and their teenage children are experimenting with sex, drugs and rock'n'roll. And instead of marrying her long-term boyfriend, Patrick, wild child turned lawyer, Janey Dart, is about to give birth to her first baby with a wealthy hedge fund manager who disapproves of them all. As they embark on a cosy holiday to celebrate Jonathan's fortieth birthday, secrets and betrayals begin to emerge which have them wondering where it all went wrong.