Holly Yarkov has a boyfriend who is a gift from the universe. She has a job that fulfils her even as it wears her down. She has a dangerously appealing co-worker, who literally plays with fire. And she has a layer of steel around her heart that is beginning to tarnish. Just as she is reaching for a future she can't quite see, Holly finds her present invaded by the past, by memories of her father's death and of her once best friend, the boy-who-never-was. Grief and longing run like veins of quicksilver through this beautiful novel, which is at once gloriously funny and achingly sad.