‘Gorgeous’ Observer * ‘Profoundly moving’ Financial Times * ‘Electrifying’ Daily Mail

How do you find the courage to make your own life? An electrifying novel about first love set in 1960s London from the bestselling Rose Tremain

Marianne is fifteen when she falls helplessly and absolutely in love with Simon. Simon owns a Morris Minor, is in his final year at school and has a dazzling future ahead of him. Desperate to escape the stifling 1950s suburbs she has been raised in, Marianne feels sure she will be able to find true happiness with him.

However a twist of fate sees Simon’s glittering future dashed and with it Marianne’s dreams. He flees the country and Marianne, realising she will now have to make a life of her own, moves to London determined to reinvent herself. But Marianne cannot let go of that first all-encompassing love and all the while Simon is in Paris, nursing a secret that will alter everything.

‘A perfect Tremain novel… English, dark and yearning… Remarkable… Tremain shows us the things that make every human life extraordinary’ The Times

‘A complex tale of becoming that’s moving, evocative and mesmerising in its acuity’ Mail on Sunday

A Sunday Times Book of the Year * Shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction *

READERS LOVE ABSOLUTELY AND FOREVER:

'Heartrending, funny, unputdownable' 5*****

'An undoubted modern classic' 5*****

'Marianne will remain with me as a friend' 5*****

'A masterclass in character and world building ... the writing is just sublime' 5*****