“Do you ever feel you need a mini-break from being married—or is it just me?”

Lizzie hasn’t gone off marriage, exactly—she’s just so tired she fantasizes about being allowed to sleep for 24 hours straight, and all she really wants to take to bed is a book and a box of chocolates…

So Lizzie unburdens herself in an email—and then accidentally sends it to her husband. Now, with the word ‘divorce’ ringing in her ears, she is living in the insalubrious Back Lane Cottage, coping as a single mother. Despite transforming her neglected body, career and libido, Lizzie still can’t get over her soon-to-be-ex. Could things have turned out differently if she’d been better dressed, or thinner? Or was she simply, as her mother-in-law suggests, the wrong sort of wife…?