It is the year 2000, and 32 year-old Tiffany accidentally bumps into her first true love (Martin Peters), an ex from her time at Warwick University. They swap numbers, and start flirting by text on those new-fangled mobile phones. Tiffany’s devoted husband, Nick, knows there are problems with their marriage and starts seeing a relationship counsellor on his own, to work out what he might do to fix things. He also confides in his work-friend Darren, who has had similar marital problems. Tiffany and Martin’s text affair escalates quickly, with the new ‘emoticons’ and ‘smiley’ faces being central to their flirtation, and they even invent new ones like {[]}, a reference to ‘foning’ someone in a very non-traditional, intimate and quite unhygienic way. Tiffany is torn between guilt and desire, still loves her husband, but wishes she could have all of the good parts of the relationship with Martin, but as a friend, and not reliant on innuendo and dirty messages. Things get complicated as Tiffany and her ‘virtual boyfriend’ spend days out alone, just her and her mobile phone, and by extension, Martin. And she’s in serious danger of falling in love with him again. Nick then breaks his ankle playing 5 a side, meaning the usual routines are put to one side as Tiffany looks after him, and they reconnect as she rediscovers why she fell in love with him in the first place. But Martin is still so appealing to her, and there’s a decision she has to make. Where does her future lie? The action jumps forwards three years, with Tiffany giving birth, but we still don’t know who the father is. In the following scenes, we learn that she chose her husband, and discover more about the ‘real’ Martin, his backstory, and his quite genuine love for Tiffany. The novel ends with Tiffany watching her now seventeen year old daughter Chloe, on her smartphone to her boyfriend, and seeing the parallels and differences, but we see that sexting is still very much a thing.