A captivating coming-of-age novel about love, sisterhood, secrets and betrayal

‘Gorgeous and sad and gripping and moving’ Marian Keyes
‘Brilliant … so vivid you feel like you’re remembering the events yourself’ The Times
‘I am telling everyone about it ... A triumph’ Rachel Joyce
‘A subtle, clever, evocative book’ Joanna Quinn, Guardian
‘I'm stricken with love for this book’ Meg Mason
‘Exposes the sisterly bond – messy, mistake strewn and quietly marvellous – with tender charm’ Mail on Sunday
‘Frank, tender and unequivocal … I loved it’ Miranda Cowley Heller
‘Delicate and profound – about how relationships bind us together and pull us apart’ Tracy Chevalier
‘Spare, moving and beautifully written’ Jojo Moyes

The quandary of the younger sister – what to do when it had already been done…

For as long as Lucy can remember, she’s been caught between loyalty to her rootless, idealistic mother and devotion to her fierce and exacting sister, Bea. But as the sisters come of age and embark on their own experiments – in love, drugs, work, motherhood – they find their lives, and their relationships, increasingly in turmoil. Can their love for each other transcend the damages of the past?

Readers love My Sister and Other Lovers
‘Gorgeously sad ... a beautiful and at times desperately painful voyage into maturity‘
‘A beautiful book ... There is so much yearning and wisdom within its pages‘
‘One of my very favorite writers ever - as soon as I finished this I thought I want to read it again‘

"Freud's control is masterful" - Irish Times

"A novel with the sharp tang of memory … I was swept up into this world of visceral intimacies, the fraught but powerful relationships between the main characters more than gripping enough to carry me along … It’s the relationship between the sisters that lies at the heart of the novel, and Freud teases out its various pressure points with delicate, moving effect … This beguiling story of female experience and family ties is well worth the three-decade wait" - Financial Times

"Freud exposes the tensions of their sisterly bond – messy, mistake-strewn and quietly marvellous – with tender charm" - Mail on Sunday

"Fact and fiction intermingle, but this elegant novel is more than memoir" - Irish Examiner

"In 1992 Esther Freud’s semi-autobiographical debut novel Hideous Kinky made her a name in the books world ... It was charming, fast-paced - and soon made into a film. So a sequel was a risk, but one which has paid off .... It captures everything from crushes to painful heels to heroin addiction, all in intense vignettes. A highly impressive account" - The Times, The best books of 2025 so far — our critics’ picks

"Freud is brilliant at capturing the time in a personal and a global sense … The details are so vivid you feel like you’re remembering the events yourself … it demands and rewards close attention" - The Times

"Lucy’s bruising but always engrossing passage from child to adulthood provides the arc here, and we’re deeply with her at every moment ... Freud’s alternately painful and funny story may cleave close to her fascinating life, but it begs larger questions, too, as Lucy’s insight grows into the lasting legacy of her rootless bohemian upbringing" - Daily Mail

"A soulful, semi-autographical tale about finding your place in the world" - Good Housekeeping, The 20 best books out in July

"Uncovering the raw, unspoken truths of sisterhood - from love and rivalry to unhealed wounds - this novel delves into the best and worst parts of growing up" - Elle

"Esther Freud’s latest work is a moving novel about sisterhood, secrets, betrayal and love" - Sheerluxe

"There is a subtle charm to each of Lucy’s lovers that slowly unravels as she learns and relearns the unreliability of everyone around her, while Bea’s distanced love encourages Lucy to open her mind to the possibility of love without possession" - Big Issue

"Despite the darkness of much of its subject matter, My Sister and Other Lovers is a spirited and funny book ... Above all else, the novel is an exploration of what it means to have a great love that is founded in shared adversity but still move past and through it – less a reckoning with the past than an acceptance of it. It is about learning how to love gently and with forbearance. It is a novel of deep compassion and grace" - Saturday Paper

"My Sister and Other Lovers is billed as a novel but arguably occupies an interesting grey area between novel and memoir, resisting the expectations of both and creating something all of its own … a fascinating tangle of fact and fiction that refuses easy answers, and a subtle, clever, evocative book" - Guardian Book of the day

"A novel that inquires deeply into the tangled nature of family" - The Gloss

"Lucy’s narration is sparky and chatty, as honest about her mistakes as about her triumphs, and it is the honesty of the search, as well as the delightful exuberance of Freud’s humour, that makes this book such a hugely enjoyable experience" - The Tablet

"Dazzling" - Sainsburys Magazine

"A coming-of-age portrait of sisterhood and betrayal from the author of Hideous Kinky" - Guardian, the books to look forward to in 2025

"Praise for Esther Freud: ‘Freud is a modern literary rarity: a born storyteller" - The Times

"We know we’re alive because of the stories we tell each other, and the things we make, and the people we love, and that’s all we ever get. Freud knows that, and it is good to be reminded" - Guardian

"The sharp intimacy of the writing is ... full of compassion and a profound decency" - Sunday Times

"Freud is a consummate novelist. Her work is always intensely imagined and vividly observed, her characters alive … her story page-turning, complex and emotionally satisfying" - Spectator

"Written with precision and poignancy ... It left me feeling hopeful" - Literary Review