Freya Wyley meets Nancy Holdaway amid the wild celebrations of VE Day, the prelude to a devoted and competitive friendship

Freya, ambitious and outspoken, pursues a career on Fleet Street while Nancy, less self-confident, struggles to get her first novel published. Both friends become entangled with Robert Cosway, a charismatic young man whose own ambition will have a momentous bearing on their lives.

Flitting from war-haunted Oxford to the bright new shallows of the 1960s,Freyaplots the unpredictable course of a womans life and loves in extraordinary times.

Anthony Quinnwas born in Liverpool in 1964. From 1998 to 2013 he was the film critic for theIndependent. He is the author of six novels:The Rescue Man, which won the 2009 Authors Club Best First Novel Award;Half of the Human Race;The Streets, which was shortlisted for the 2013 Walter Scott Prize;Curtain Call, which was chosen for Waterstones andMail on SundayBook Clubs;Freya,a Radio 2 Book Club choice, andEureka.