Helen Bradshaw isn't exactly living out her derams. She's a lowly assistant editor at GirlTime magazine, she drives an ancient Toyota, ans she has a history of choosing men who fall several thousand feet below acceptable boyfriend standard. Not to mention that she shares an apartment with a scruffy, tactless roommate, her best girlfriends are a little too perfect, and the most affectionate male in her life-her cat, Fatboy-occasionally pees in her underwear drawer.

Then Helen gets the telephone call she least expects: Her father has had a massive heart attack. Initially brushing off his death as merely an interruption in her already chaotic life (they were never very close after all), Helen is surprised to find everything else starting to crumble around her. Her pushy mother is coming apart at the seams, a close friend might be heading toward tragedy, and after the tequila incident, it looks as though Tom the vet will be sticking with Dalmations. Turns out getting over it isn't going to be quite as easy as she thought.