An apparently harmless loss of a contraceptive chemical turns out to be a disaster affecting not only the coalition government and the civil service, but most of the population. It also gives the press unprecedented opportunities for scoops, and for some people who will always find ways to profit.
Janie idyllic cottage, left to her by her godmother, is being demolished. Handsome Manuel asks her out for dinner, and then becomes involved in her feckless sister's latest disaster. To make things even worse, Brian, the step-nephew of her godmother produces a will leaving the cottage to him.
Ros needs to find her half-brother, Tim, who has vanished. His last postcards from Majorca had been marked, indicating isolated coves and unidentified buildings. Ros meets Spaniard Lorenzo y Carreira who Tim had mentioned going sailing with and he might be able to help. Then Ros learns some puzzling facts.
Pippa is reluctant to return to the States to marry Frank after a few months in England. She accepts a job in Minorca as assistant to a former film star who is planning to write his memoirs. These promise to be explosive, and his last wife and his nephew Juan try to persuade him to abandon the idea.
Nicola takes a summer job in the New Forest as tutor/companion to the wealthy seventeen-year-old Sarah. Sarah rebels against the harsh rules imposed by her half-brother Robert. Nicola has clashed with Robert before, but when various calamities afflict the family she is thrown into closer contact with Robert.
Fleur enjoys working at Chad's, a big London hospital, and hopes the rumours from her previous hospital will not follow her. Only a few people know how she was kissed by a patient. Then she discovers he is surgeon Russell Delaney, heartthrob of Chad's, and he seems determined to add her to his list of conquests.
Judy breaks off her engagement, and heads to her sister Fay's house to look after her dogs while she and husband Paul are in Australia. Paul's cousin Justin, also recovering from a broken engagement, is occupying the spare room. Then their pasts begin to catch up with them.
Cas finds Alice too bland and too elegant to make a farmer's wife, and she's afraid of llamas, his latest venture. Widowed Lucy moves to the Chilterns for a new life. Rosa, the llama invades her kitchen and she becomes involved in Rosa's love life as Cas seeks a mate for her.
Coming out of the shower in her borrowed New York apartment, Rezia is confronted by an angry, but attractive man. Klaus lives next door and has mistaken Rezia for the apartment's owner. But their developing relationship is threatened by newspaper photos of him he thinks she has taken.
Julie, still mourning her husband Andrew, is bullied into taking a cruise by her sister Susan. An earlier holiday was a disaster when she was thrown together with Steven, the only other singleton in the party. But Steven is hoping to pick up the relationship again and is impervious to snubs.
