Felicity Everett - the author of more than 20 books for children, here making her debut in adult fiction - treads familiar territory: the friendship that grows between five women while at university, and the strain placed on it by the passing years. In 1982, Stella, Bridget, Vinnie, Maxine and Nell are at Sussex University, where they share a house, step out on feminist demos, and allow a succession of unsuitable men - and, in one case, women - into their rarely made beds. Twenty years later, they are managing marriages, children and careers, with varying degrees of success; and it takes a...