Amber Celeste Reynaud, a young schoolteacher of Huguenot descent, and proud of it, is passionately keen to enter British politics as a member of the Ecology party.

Her bête noir is the rich and famous MP for the Business party, Catherine Fitzwilliam. Daughter of a baronet, she is married to a wealthy banker and lives in a fabulous, listed property. Amber loathes her and everything she stands for.

A chance meeting in a London theatre leads to a far from polite outburst from Amber, for which she is ashamed. But Catherine’s teenage son had, after all, poked her painfully in the back with his umbrella.

Amber teaches sports and English at a state school in the Brighton area. When she is summoned by the head teacher to meet a prospective new entry to her class in the winter term, it is Catherine and her son who she finds sitting in the Head’s study. Sam, who Amber has realised is on the Asperger Spectrum, insists he leave his private school to join Amber’s class. Against the Head’s better judgement, Amber persuades her to give the boy a chance.

Amber lives in a marriage of convenience with her husband, Ian. She has never questioned her indifference to sex, believing she needs all her energies to flow into her career ambitions. Now she recognises that the looks the very married Catherine gives her are far from innocent. And strangely, they don’t leave her cold either…