A propulsive, seductive new novel about friendship, exploitation and intimacy from the prize-winning author ofWhere Reasons End

Fabienne is dead. Her childhood best friend, Agnès, receives the news in America, far from the French countryside where the two girls were raised – the place that Fabienne helped Agnès escape ten years ago. Now, Agnès is free to tell her story.

As children in a backwater town, they’d built a private world, invisible to everyone but themselves – until Fabienne hatched the plan that would change everything, launching Agnès on an epic trajectory through fame, fortune, and terrible loss.

A dark, ravishing tale winding from the rural provinces to Paris, from an English boarding school, to the quiet Pennsylvania home where Agnès can live without her past. is a story of intimacy and obsession, friendship and rivalry perfect for fans of Elena Ferrante, Ottessa Moshfegh and Kamila Shamsie.The Book of Goose

‘Beguiling … A shimmering, unsettling tale of exploitation and manipulation’Daily Mail

‘Brilliant … A novel of deceptions and cruelty’Spectator

‘For all its surface lushness, this is a novel of meticulous philosophical inquiry…resonant with echoes of… , as well Elizabeth Strout… electrifying’My Brilliant FriendObserver

'A dazzling, subtle, skilful knockout – I loved it' Charlotte Mendelson ‘One of our finest living authors … propulsively entertaining’New York Times ‘Wonderfully strange and alive’ Jon McGregor