In her witty, masterful debut novel, Margaret Drabble conjures a gripping story of sibling rivalry. Louise, beautiful and sophisticated, marries wealthy novelist Stephen Fairfax. Sarah, recently graduated from Oxford, is thrown back into family matters. Louise's life becomes one of parties, gossip columns and glamour. Sarah, now in London, begins to discover a newfound freedom, only glimpsing her sister's fashionable life. But as rumours of infidelity in Louise's marriage surface, Sarah finds that her sister, beneath her cool exterior, may not be the woman she thought she was.

'Margaret Drabble's early novels were intimate and sprightly chronicles of the small dissatisfactions and small triumphs of young women like herself' - Hilary Mantel

"Her bright, insouciant début novel . . . joined the strengths of old-school realism with the playful detachment and blatant mythmaking of postmodernism" - * New Yorker *

"Her book . . . has considerable humour, urbanity and intelligence" - * Kirkus Reviews *

"Praise for Margaret Drabble: One of the most thought-provoking and intellectually challenging writers around" - * Financial Times *

"Margaret Drabble's early novels were intimate and sprightly chronicles of the small dissatisfactions and small triumphs of young women like herself" - * New York Review of Books *

"One of the most versatile and accomplished authors of her generation" - * New Yorker *

"She was one of the most assiduous chroniclers of female experience in Britain during that time. Drabble's work has always been characterised by astute social observation" - * Guardian *

"One of the most versatile and accomplished authors of her generation" - * New Yorker *

"One of our foremost women writers" - * Guardian *