When Annilade Norwood ignores a crying child Vanessa Palmer has no idea that a wrecking ball is coming to shatter her world.
Finally divorced from her money-obsessed husband Vanessa Palmer, founder and headmistress of the exclusive Little Oaks nursery school, only needs one thing to make her life complete, a family. She thinks there's plenty of time to get this together - but there isn't. As absentees from the school mount it rapidly becomes clear that the universe has conjured up a terminal threat to mankind. But of what use is a shotgun against a parasitic fungus? And when the population of Hadlow is reduced to Vanessa herself, just when is the right time to leave?