Book description
In her eagerly anticipated second novel Mail on Sunday Novel
Competition winner Isabel Ashdown explores the treacherous territory
of adolescent friendships, and traces across the decades the
repercussions of a dangerous relationship.
It's more than twenty years since Sarah Ribbons last set foot
inside her old high school, a crumbling Victorian-built comprehensive
on the south coast of England. Now, as she prepares for her school
reunion, 39-year-old Sarah has to face up to the truth of what really
happened back in the summer of 1986.
August 1985: Sarah celebrates her fifteenth birthday in the back
garden of the suburban seaside house she shares with her ageing
father. As she embarks on her fifth and final year at Selton High
School for Girls Sarah's main focus is on her erratic friendships with
Tina and Kate; her closest allies one moment, her fiercest opponents
the next as they compete for the attention of the new boy, Dante. When
her father is unexpectedly taken ill, Sarah is sent to stay with
Kate's family in nearby Amber Chalks. Kate's youthful parents welcome
her into the comfort of their liberal family home, where the girls can
eat off trays and watch TV in Kate's bedroom. They've never been
closer -- until a few days into her stay, events take a sinister turn,
and Sarah knows that nothing will ever be the same again.
Isabel Ashdown lives in West Sussex with her carpenter husband and
two children. Her first novel Glasshopper (Observer 'Best Débuts of
2009', Evening Standard 'Best Books of the Year') was published to
critical acclaim in 2009 and an extract from the novel won the Mail on
Sunday Novel Competition. Isabel Ashdown recently launched The
Chichester Book Club - a new website dedicated to introducing local
readers to books and authors in their region.
