Turning forty, Lisa Grant is broke, alone and living in rural Gloucestershire, hurtling towards an inevitable midlife crisis. Romantically, she pushes people away. She cannot say, “I love you.” Jack, the only love of her life, put the Atlantic Ocean between them after they fell out the last time and now lives in New York. Fearing for her sanity, she addresses the problem she has carried with her for the past forty years – her narcissistic mother, Elizabeth. When Lisa was six years old, her father disappeared, and her mother kept the truth about why he left the family home hidden. When starting her journalistic career, Lisa reconnects with her father and discovers grim truths about her controlling mother. After four decades of sparring with her impossible mother, Lisa cultivates a more rational and sympathetic approach to discovering why her mother lacks empathy. Believing childhood trauma may be responsible, Lisa harnesses her journalistic skills to investigate her mother’s past and is shocked by what she finds.