'Carpe diem, as all our generation seem to be saying these days,' Annie Stoneycroft instructs her friend Liz, who is sixty going on sixteen and trembling on the brink of a love affair. 'Roughly translated: bloody well stop messing about and get on with it.'

Annie naturally embraces the baby boomer's credo that old age, far from being a biological inevitability, is a mere lifestyle choice. If not downright carelessness. That doesn't stop her marshalling her contemporaries into suitable relationships - before it's too late.

Perhaps it's even time she did the same for herself. But while smart, sassy Ms Stoneycroft may tempter any romantic fancies with Yorkshire common sense, what she has yet to learn is that love is like the measles. The later it strikes, the harder it hits . . .

Sparkling, witty and intelligent, The Time of Her Life is a deliciously perceptive romantic comedy for the modern reader.