Throw aside your idea of a heroine, and meet Claire Newbold. Despite hardship - a young child's death, infertility, an unfaithful husband - wry, ferocious Claire has been trying to soldier on. But then she simply checks out of job and home to confront love and loss on the road. During the leave of absence she takes from her usual life, her behavior ranges from the illicit to - she fears - the deranged. She develops a scam for staying in hotel rooms without paying. She seduces a teenage boy at a hotel swimming pool. Armed with a dangerous amount of medical lore (her husband is a surgeon), she pursues a diagnosis that might explain everything. Claire even comes to believe that she is clairvoyant - able to "read" the souls of people she encounters on her travels. And eventually she begins to see into her own soul. Some might call her sexual exploits "casual"; to Claire they are anything but. As she struggles to repair her marriage and her life, she surprises herself - and us - by emerging with a new sense of redemption.