Maggie Hardin, a vibrant and practical thirty-something New Yorker working at the New School, decides now is the time to have a child on her own. But when she meets John Harding, a "ficto-critical anthropologist" and struggling novelist, Maggie falls in love for the first time, and adjusts her plans for motherhood. Complicating matters, John is in an unhappy marriage with Georgette Nørgaard, an ambitious Danish academic. With some help from Maggie's eccentric and hilarious best friends, married couple Tony and Felicia, Maggie sets in motion a bold new plan that intertwines the three main characters' lives and connects them in surprising and humorous ways. Maggie learns that sometimes destiny should be left to its own devices.