'Miss Hawkins looked at her watch. It was two-thirty. If everything went according to schedule, she could safely reckon to be dead by six o'clock.'

But by the day's end, events have taken a dramatic turn and Miss Hawkins is sentenced to live. Forcibly retired, she is presented by her colleagues with a five-year diary.

Programmed since childhood to total obedience, Miss Hawkins slavishly follows her diary's commands until the impossible happens – she meets a man. As a last reprieve from the horrors of loneliness she embarks on a determined full-scale mission to taste life's secret pleasures – and pains– until the cup runs dry…