Having survived a brush with cancer, Helen Brown, happily married with three grown children, took stock of her comfortable suburban life and found it wanting. So when she was invited to visit New York, the city that never sleeps, she seized the day and accepted. Perhaps, she mused, she might never return.

There was a catch, however: would she foster a homeless cat during her stay? Visualising a dozy, sweet-natured snuggler with a name like Mavis, Helen agreed. But the cat she met in the Manhattan shelter was anything but dozy. Instead, Bono, as he was called, was wide-eyed and unpredictable, a bundle of nervous energy with a feisty attitude and punk haircut to boot.

After a shaky start, Helen and Bono began to get to know each other. And, as winter turned to spring, cat and woman explored new beginnings and past heartache, only to discover that, in the end, home is where the heart is, wherever that may be.