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?

Esther Freud is the author of nine previous novels, and her work has been translated into thirteen languages. Her first novel, Hideous Kinky, was made into a film starring Kate Winslet. Freud was selected as one of Granta's Best Young British Novelists in 1993. Her other novels include The Sea House, Mr Mac and Me and I Couldn't Love You More. Her first full-length play, Stitchers, was produced in London in 2018; her first book for children, Enchanted Beach, will be published in the summer of 2025. She lives in London.