Set in Liverpool and London, the novel covers five decades in the lives of two very different women, beginning in the 60’s.
The way she started out, Katrina Grayefsky was all set to conquer the world. She was beautiful and brainy and she intended to use both to make the money her Jewish immigrant parents did not have. She had not reckoned on falling in love with a man not acceptable to her family, who pressure her into a wealthy but unhappy marriage. Still very young, Katrina embarks on a series of unhappy affairs. Anya Sobell is Katrina’s best friend, and it is through her eyes that Katrina’s life is further revealed. Anya tries to help Katrina to achieve her ambition to become a celebrity author by introducing her friend, Rachel Faulkner, herself a highly successful journalist. From then on, the three women carry on a complex friendship involving confidences, shared experiences and withheld information. Katrina and Anya weather difficult marriages, scandal and betrayal, illness and tragedy only to meet once again in the place that saw the beginning of it all, but with some secrets left to be revealed.