Four friends. A betrayal that should shatter their seemingly perfect lives. But will they let it? For fans of The Paper Palace, Among Friends is a sharply written and blisteringly brilliant novel about perfect lives and the terrible secrets they hide.

‘A hard diamond of a novel . . . I have not stopped thinking of it since’ – Coco Mellors

‘Every sentence keeps you hanging in the air, waiting for the next punch to the gut’ – Miranda Cowley Heller

‘Packs a huge emotional punch. I couldn’t put it down’ – Daily Mail

‘A living thing . . . A huge achievement’ – Financial Times

Perfect lives hide terrible secrets

Having emerged from a childhood of poverty and neglect, Amos now has a life that others envy: a brilliant wife, a golden daughter, and a friendship that has anchored him for thirty years. All of that is set to change. In the course of one fateful weekend in a beautiful house upstate, Amos’s life will be undone by a shocking act of violence.

In its aftermath, Amos must ask: when your world collapses, what - and who - will you sacrifice to survive?

‘Bracingly honest and affectingly intimate . . . Upends its characters’ lives so ruthlessly and revealingly that it is hard not to take pleasure in a false facade being finally smashed’ – The Guardian

‘Masterly’ – John Banville

"Impressively nuanced . . . Among Friends is a bracingly honest and affectingly intimate depiction of abuse, family dynamics and self-deceit. It is sharply observed and psychologically astute, somehow both passionate and dispassionate, and it upends its characters’ lives so ruthlessly and revealingly that it is hard not to take pleasure in a false facade being finally smashed." - The Guardian

"It’s beautifully written and packs a huge emotional punch. I couldn’t put it down and kept thinking about it long after I finished. Brilliant" - Daily Mail

"Ebbott's voice and language set the book apart from other family dramas" - NPR

"Ebbott is obviously a writer of lavish talents in all the old-school virtues of sentence-writing, paragraph-building, dialogue, characterisation, plot and pacing . . . as the properly page-turning repercussions continue, it’s not just the action that darkens, but the whole social setting" - Daily Telegraph

"Stylish and assured . . . Ebbott’s prose is honed and aphoristic, recalling the work of James Salter and John Cheever . . . The sentences go down easy, like a cold gin and tonic on a hot day." - The Washington Post

"Hal Ebbott’s roman d’analyse-style debut resurfaces old rivalries and resentments, be it class, marriage or power . . . Ebbott grants the readers an intimate insight into thoughts vs actions that will leave you questioning your oldest friendships" - The New Statesman

"In refined prose that feels like a throwback to mid-20th-century psychological realism, Ebbott lays bare the many ways in which the families harm each other as each character seeks to protect the status quo . . . It's an alluring accomplishment" - Publishers Weekly

"A beautiful read, with moments where the words simply burst forth from the page" - Irish Times

"What makes this novel work is how much Ebbot leaves out. He never comes into a scene a word too soon or stays a sentence too late" - The Spectator

"Emotionally astute and beautifully crafted, Among Friends delivers an unforgettable reading experience" - Love Reading