A cautionary tale — intelligent, accessible and darkly funny — about the dangers of living with your mother-in-law, from the author of Eat, Drink and Be Married .

You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your mother-in-law.

Adam and Electra are living proof that opposites attract. She is effusive and creative with a fiery Mediterranean temperament. He is calm, measured and very English — a gentle giant. The couple’s biggest problem is Adam’s mother. Margaret is cold, critical and snobbish, and she disapproves heartily of her excitable daughter-in-law. And Margaret is hell-bent and determined to poison Adam and Electra’s marriage.

Margaret has another son, Peter, a successful entrepreneur with an immaculately clad trophy wife. He is his mother’s golden boy and can do no wrong — or so it appears on the surface. But is he as perfect as he seems?

Underlying tensions come to the surface when Margaret has an accident and is forced to move in with Adam and Electra. Will their relationship survive?