Ella Brady, a young science teacher, falls in love with a handsome, suave businessman (Don Richardson) who is married but assures her that his marriage is "dead".

Until the moment when he is exposed as a corrupt swindler and runs away out of the country and out of her life – leaving Ella, her family, and many people in Dublin without their savings.

Ella is disgraced and quits her teaching job to work more than 60 hours a week at Quentins restaurant, with the Scarlet Feather catering company, and with a film crew, to help out her family.

Smaller plot points revolve around the background of Patrick and Brenda Brennan (the managers of Quentins), Quentin himself, Ella's girlfriends Deirdre and Nuala, and many of the regulars at the restaurant; the main plot is interspersed with various vignettes in the lives of people who had been in contact with the restaurant in one way or another, these interweaving with each other and with Ella Brady's life in various unpredictable ways.

[1] While she decided to forego writing "big novels", with Quentins she continued producing short stories that link together to advance the plot.