Only human - Susie Boyt

Marjorie Hemming, marriage guidance counsellor, craves concord and harmony the way other people need cigarettes. She longs for all her quarrelling couples to be reconciled, and is delighted when people start to mistake her for an angelic nurse in a hospital t.v. drama series. But her alarmingly skinny teenage daughter has secrets she won't reveal, and some couples just refuse to kiss and make up. Even stalwart Nurse Rose is acting out of character as she launches herself into an obviously doomed marriage. Marjorie has knitted her world together with care - is it starting to fray?