Esther Freud

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.

An unforgettable novel of mothers and daughters, wives and muses, secrets and outright lies....

It is 1914, and Thomas Maggs lives with his parents on the Suffolk coast. Life is quiet, shaped by the seasons....

Sixteen-year-old Lisa moves to London at the close of the 70s, hoping to follow in her older sister Ruby's footsteps. Ruby has cropped hair, a drug habit and not one but two unsuitable men....