'The taboo-breaking, the fabulous prose - there's no one like Edna O'Brien.' Anne Enright

'Surprising and beautiful and courageous .. A beacon.' Megan Nolan
'Novels of heart-breaking empathy, rigorous honesty and peerless beauty.' Eimear McBride

Caithleen 'Kate' Brady and Bridget 'Baba' Brennan are growing up in a repressive Irish village after World War II. Kate is a romantic, looking for love; Baba is a reckless survivor. After being expelled from convent school, they dream of the bright lights of Dublin - and are rewarded with bad luck and bad sex; marry for the wrong reasons; but continue to fight the expectations forced upon 'girls' of every era to become brave new women.

This is the second novel in Edna O'Brien's trilogy which revolutionised Irish literature in the 1960s. Banned by the authorities as 'indecent' and burned by the clergy, they were notorious for their frank portrayal of sexual desire: but scandal turned to fame, and made this glorious coming-of-age tale an instant classic that inspires and delights readers to this day.