She had a husband, children and grandchildren who loved her, a beautiful home, enough

money. What sort of person was she to feel so overwhelmed with gloom and resentment on Christmas morning?

They have been close friends for almost two decades, supporting each other through personal and professional crises - parents

dying, children leaving home, house moves, job

changes, political activism, diets and really bad haircuts.

Now the '

'gang of four', Isabel, Sally, Robin and Grace, are all

fifty-something, successful...and restless.

It is Isabel who makes the first move, taking a year away from her family to follow in her mother's footsteps across Europe. Soon Sally is on her way to San Francisco, to come face to face with a guilty secret. Robin, in the wake of a clandestine relationship, heads for isolation in the country. And Grace? Well, Grace would never go away for an entire year, but, lonely in the others' absence, she thinks she might take a short holiday in England.

Once there, she bumps into someone she hardly knows - herself.

Gang of Four is a story of four very different journeys and a celebration of women in the prime of life.

'Finally. A coming of age novel for the rest of us.' SUSAN MAUSHART, author of The Mask of Motherhood