Katherine Millar is eighteen, and desperate for lots of things - to be thinner and less swotty, and to have cooler friends. But most of all she wishes that she had two parents instead of one grandma, Poll. Katherine's father, Poll's adored only son, was killed in a car crash when she was a baby. According to Poll, the crash was the fault of Katherine's mother, who disappeared shortly afterwards and hasn't been seen since. On her birthday she receives a mysterious parcel of glamorous, grown-up clothes - so unlike the ones Poll makes her wear. And then the handsome and self-assured Callum turns up, claiming to be a cousin she never knew she had. Katherine can feel that change is coming; the omens are all around her.