This is the story of a young, unnamed ordinand with his mind full of love and his heart closed to love. After a nervous collapse in church, he is sent to London on a placement where he enters an unfamiliar world of rentboys, outcasts and AIDS.

It is at once intimate and epic, poignant and funny, lyrical and analytic. Shocking events unfold against a backdrop of meticulously observed religious services. High Church ritual, evangelical revivalism and the ancestor-worship of the English gentry are all subjected to merciless scrutiny. In a fictional climate dominated by materialism, "Easter" stands apart in its bold exploration of the nature of God, the problem of suffering and the existence of evil. With an unforgettable gallery of characters ranging from a Holocaust survivor and an African princess to AIDS patients and Queen...

Gillian Freeman is among the finest contemporary novelists. - Brigid Brophy, New Statesman



Realistic and unsentimental ... Their relationship is handled with delicacy and has an authentic ring. - Sunday Telegraph



[S]ober and scrupulously documented ... accurately and touchingly demonstrates the unselfconscious and comparatively guiltless love which working-class men often feel for each other. - Time and Tide



Dick and Reggie are leather boys, working-class London teens with an affinity for leather jackets and motorcycles who become friends...

From the septuagenarian prostitute exposed in a tabloid sting to the Queen Bee of a local dramatic society upstaged by her cleaner; from the nine-year-old girl caught in the crossfire of her parents’ divorce to the widow stranded on an Antarctic cruise during the COVID pandemic; from the doctor’s wife confronting the enormity of her husband’s online dealings to the forgotten musical comedy star yearning to return to the spotlight; these twelve captivating and compelling stories explore a diverse range of female experience. By turn humorous and poignant, whimsical and provocative, they...