The protagonist is Ceri D’Altroy, a woman in her thirties working in London as a journalist. She feels worn down by her life: unsatisfying work writing features, feeling stuck, and constantly being the go‑to person for other people’s emotional problems.

On impulse, encouraged by self‑help books and watching lots of Oprah, she decides to make a radical change. She quits her job in London, rents out her flat, and moves to Leeds to take up a teaching role in psychology — something she’s always wanted to do.

She also moves into a shared house with new housemates (including Ed and Jake). Her hope is that the fresh start will let her leave behind her old life and her “matchmaking” tendencies. She vows not to meddle in other people’s love lives any more.

But it doesn’t turn out that way. Almost immediately, people around her keep dragging her into romantic dramas:

She helps Ed try to get up the courage to declare his love to a woman who is “way out of his league.”

She reconnects two people who used to be a couple, despite their being “happily uncoupled.”

She becomes involved in the lives of her colleagues: for example, Mel and Claudine, two friends, are flirting with the possibility of an affair, and Gwen, the head of the department, has a secret she wants to share with Ceri.

Meanwhile, Ceri also struggles with her own personal and romantic life. She’s had months without a kiss, feels lonely, second‑guesses herself, her attractiveness, whether she’ll ever find someone who accepts her, quirks and all.

The tension in the book is around whether Ceri can resist her urge to meddle in others’ lives, whether that’s helpful or harmful, and whether through helping others she can learn to help herself — especially in love and in finding what she really wants.