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

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

'Slender, perfect and sparkling ... I'm stricken with love for this book' Meg Mason

'Details the profound and complex nature of love and family ... Spare, moving and beautifully written' Jojo Moyes

‘Freud brings us directly inside the beating hearts of her characters. I loved this’ Miranda Cowley Heller

‘Both delicate and profound – about how relationships bind us together and pull us apart’ Tracy Chevalier

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From the author of Hideous Kinky comes a captivating novel about sisterhood, secrets, betrayal and love.

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. From her unsettled childhood to her turbulent teenage years, she’s been forced to make a choice.

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 the love they have for each other transcend the damage of the past? Or is the past too dangerous to examine?

"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