Human character is best described by telling stories about people. The Lent Factor describes forty very different people - one for each day of Lent - who have a special quality about them, and uses their stories to reflect on how faith and character are connected. A theme from each brief story is illuminated by reflection on a scene, passage or word from the Bible. The appropriateness of the use of a cross to mark out the 'X' factor within human beings becomes the more pertinent as the journey through Lent approaches Holy Week and Easter.

The cast list includes Edith Cavell, Philip Toynbee (father of Polly), U.A. Fanthorpe, Dorothy Sayers, Charles Wesley, Rabbi Hugo Gryn, Julian of Norwich, Kathleen Ferrier, Eva Peron and many others from different backgrounds and diverse periods of history, some famous and some entirely unknown.