Anne's Review

Am so glad that some of Drabbles books are being republished. If you are my age, you will remember the time that her and her sister A. S. Byatt, were the queens of the literary world.  Reading this book, I have no doubt why that was.  She writes with considerable humour, urbanity and intelligence and I found myself roaring with laughter at some of her characters interactions with others, something I have almost forgotten how to do, with the serious and tragic content of most modern novels.

However, her novels are not to be dismissed as not being serious; She is still, and will remain, one of the world’s most thought-provoking and intellectually challenging writers.

This is a novel about two sisters, Sarah, recently returned from Oxford and her sister, Louise, who recently married a wealthy man, whose life becomes one of parties, gossip columns and glamour.

This is a novel is about, the two sisters, their perceived needs and the actuality of what is!   I will leave you to discover the rest.  Fabulous read!

Publishers Reviews

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