A woman learns about the death of her father. She returns to her Orthodox Jewish home and falls in love with her best childhood friend who is now married to her cousin.

Beth, a bookish teenager, befriends Emilia, an aspiring novelist who has just arrived in town. Emilia soon begins an affair with Beth’s father that threatens to have devastating consequences.

A look at a few chapters in the life of Poppy, a cheery, colorful, North London schoolteacher whose optimism tends to exasperate those around her.