No real thorns either -- it's just that Katie, who works in real estate, isn't ready to stop to have children -- the children Jeremy wants -- they've been married for two years. But after she worries a little about the young woman who works for him in his bookshop and the virus which hits the village of Little Oxford and Jeremy with a severity one would not have thought possible, Katie adjusts. Nothing has really changed (it's nice to know that wealthier people still have help including an ""upstairs girl""), and this is for that readership that sits pat. And enjoys it.