From where I stand in the shadows outside the pub I own, I can already tell what mood my husband’s in and it makes me want to stay exactly where I am. However, I can also see my bar manager, Jay. Sexy, young and exciting, he’s the person who’s going to set me free from my middle-aged monotony.

I’m dreading turning fifty more than I’ve dreaded any other birthday in my life. Now that my kids are at university, the prospect of spending the rest of my life with my bullying, balding and boring husband is a miserable one.

Which is why I employed Jay. He gives me the reason I need to get up, to go on and to look forward.

And I’ll do anything to keep him.

He’s due to go travelling in a few days and wants me to go with him.

Every part of me screams to begin the new year as I mean to continue – by leaving the old behind in favour of the new. But I have a major obstacle to overcome.

Bryn. Since he’s discovered my affair, he’s realised how much he’ll lose.

And he’ll do anything to prevent me from leaving.

He’s hatching a plan for the New Year party we’re having at the pub this evening. But what he doesn’t know is that I’ve got one too. It’s just a matter of which one of us will go first.

Either of us could be the victim of what’s going to happen as the clock ticks into New Year’s Day.

And either of us could be responsible for it.