Iris, a museum conservator in her late forties, is separating from her husband while bringing up two daughters. Raif is a stalled academic, as uncertain of the past as he is of the future, whose girlfriend is about to move in with him. When Iris and Raif first meet by chance, Iris suddenly turns away and starts to run. She is running from what this encounter has woken in her. In the City of Love's Sleep is a contemporary story about what it means to fall in love in middle age. It charts the steps two people take towards one another and what it means to have taken those steps before.