Bec is adrift. It’s the summer before her junior year in college. She’s sleeping with a married professor, losing interest in her classes, and equivocating about her career. In a half-hearted bid to redeem herself, she takes a job caring for Kate, a thirty-six-year-old woman who has been immobilized by ALS.

As it turns out, before the disease Kate was a stylish and commanding woman, an advertising executive and an accomplished chef. Now, as she and Bec spend long days together, Bec begins to absorb Kate's sophistication and her sensuality, cooking for her, sharing her secrets, and gradually beginning to live her own life with a boldness informed by Kate’s influence. The more intense her commitment to Kate, the further Bec strays from the complacency of her college life. When Kate’s married life veers into dangerous territory, Bec will have to choose between the values of her old life and the allure of an entirely new one.

Michelle Wildgen's debut novel is “a complex and satisfying dish: a story of intimate strangers and their impact on each other's lives" (O, The Oprah Magazine).