Bookends

Catherine Warner and Simon Nelson are best friends and total opposites. Cath is scatterbrained and messy, and — since her heart was broken a few years back — emotionally closed off. Si is impossibly tidy, bitchy, and desperate to find a man of his own. They live in London's West Hampstead alongside their lifelong friends Josh and Lucy, who are married with a small monster of a child and a terrifying Swedish nanny.

Then Portia arrives: a stunningly beautiful university friend with a reputation for breaking hearts. The four welcome her back into the fold, unsure whether she has a hidden agenda or simply wants her old friends again. Her reappearance sets off a chain of events that tests every friendship in the group.

Cath, meanwhile, has plenty else to think about — she leaves her advertising job to open the bookstore she has always dreamed of, and finds herself circled by James, a charming estate agent who keeps dropping by long after the deal is done. Bookends is Jane Green at her warmest: a novel about friendship, and how it weathers love, ambition, marriage and growing up.