Iris's family--her ex-husband with his new wife and baby; her son, and her best friend's daughter--gather to pack up their holiday house. They are there for one last time, one last weekend, and one last party--but in the course of this weekend, their connections will be affirmed, and their frailties and secrets revealed--to the reader at least, if not to each other. The Hope Fault is a novel about extended family: about steps and exes and fairy godmothers; about parents and partners who are missing, and the people who replace them.