Maeve Corrigan, once a successful businesswoman and resolutely independent, is dying. Having no children of her own, she determines that she will bequeath her great wealth to one of several nephews or nieces, the offspring of her two estranged brothers. And so she arranges to meet three of them: Kate, a young woman whose family lives the other side of the world, in Australia, and who is suffering from debilitating illness. Against her parents' wishes, she seizes the challenge laid down by her aunt, and travels to England. Mitch Corrigan is the son of Maeve's ruthless brother Des, a man who will trample over anyone to get his way, whose wife Judith has recently walked out on him. And little Lily, Des' illegitimate teenage daughter, who loves the only father she has ever known, Cal Richmond. As Maeve's dying wish is revealed to each of these three people, a new future opens up before them, with the promise of a whole new family...