Tired of city life, the Slatterys suddenly decide to leave town and take to the hills - or rather more to move to the West Country, a move finally decided upon when Joe Slattery finds his business partner has absconded with all the funds. The Slatterys search for and finally find a house set in the middle of all but nowhere-land and this the first book in the series charts the ups and downs of what often proves to be a traumatic, dramatic and comic change of life for Maisie Slattery, a painter who earns her living from child portraiture, her husband Joe, a classic car collector and salesman and their two young children Roxie and Max.