Esther Freud returns with a poignant and introspective exploration of sisterhood, selfhood and the ache of growing up. My Sister and Other Lovers is a tender, beautifully written account of a fractured family and the push and pull of loyalty and longing.

Told through the eyes of Elise, the story unfolds across years of wandering and emotional upheaval. Torn between the chaotic warmth of her unconventional mother and the sharp edges of her older sister Bea, Elise is never quite settled. Their childhood feels like a dream half-remembered – hitchhiking through Ireland, crashing in communes, forging fragile identities amid the wreckage of their parents' choices.

As the sisters grow into womanhood, their paths diverge. Elise’s need to connect is palpable, her voice always seeking some form of stability, while Bea’s wildness and detachment risk leaving her entirely adrift. Yet beneath their distance is a deep, complicated love – the kind that survives even when it cannot be spoken.

Freud writes with a precision that cuts straight to the emotional core. Her depictions of romantic and familial entanglement are raw and true, capturing both the thrill and devastation of intimacy. There is betrayal here, and bruised trust, but also grace and the quiet hope of healing.

My Sister and Other Lovers is a moving portrayal of how childhood shapes us, how family wounds linger, and how we fight to reclaim our own stories. It’s a subtle, soul-stirring book that lingers long after the final page.

Read more at The Secret Book Review.

I read ‘Hideous Kinky’ a long time ago and so was intrigued to find out what had happened to Julia and her two daughters, Bea and Lucy, after their spell in Morocco. In “My Sister and Other Lovers’, as ever, Esther Freud’s characterisation of her central characters who attract more of the same bohemians is entirely convincing. It’s not surprising that both girls lose their way as they grow up whilst having very different feelings towards their mother.

This novel may appear to focus on the intimate relationships the sisters establish as they become young adults but, in the background, the influence of their chaotic upbringing is ever-present. Julia continues to be both loving and selfish – she hears what she wants to hear and it’s rare that anything gets in the way of her plans. Meanwhile the girls have different ways in which they battle with the legacy of their early lives.

This is a read which will certainly benefit from being familiar with ‘Hideous Kinky’ but could be read as a standalone. It’s sad and funny, predictable and surprising. All in all, a well-written exploration of the possible effects and outcomes of the benign neglect school of parenting.

My thanks to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for a copy of this book in exchange for a fair review.

Freud is a wonderful writer. This loosely autobiographical tale picks up after Hideous Kinky with the lives of two sisters. I didn’t love it as much as her other books but she’s always worth reading.

I struggled from page one with this novel and found reviewing difficult. The writing style was jagged and confusing. I could not connect with the characters. The vocabulary and the plot I found bewildering and I struggled to finish the book. I tried very hard to like this book but unfortunately it didn't happen.

I give a 2 star rating but would recommend to friends.

THANK YOU TO NETGALLEY FOR THE OPPORTUNITY OF READING AN ARC OF THIS NOVEL IN RETURN FOR AN HONEST REVIEW.

My Sister and Other Lovers (Uk Release 3rd July) follows up the story of Lucy and Bea, the children from Freud’s 1992 novel, Hideous Kinky. That book, partway between Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle and Nina Stibbe’s Man at the Helm, is an autobiographical novel which tells the quirky, charming, story of an English woman who, escaping her fractured, hectic life, takes her two young daughters to Morocco in the 1960s. Hideous Kinky, as narrated by Lucy, is a superbly engaging, funny, and evocative, but in common with the others I mentioned, it has a shadow of childhood neglect across it. My Sister and Other Lovers, also narrated by Lucy, explores the insidious impact of such an unorthodox, fragmented upbringing.

Freud, with her usual warmth, wit, and eye for the delicate nuances of strong emotion, brings us the following decades in fits and starts of significant events and relationships, often with years between chapters. We start a few years after Hideous Kinky, Lucy’s school years, then on to further education, her days as an actor, her years as a parent, a film based on their childhood, etc., all the while caught between the twin loves of her life - her sister, Bea, and her mother, Julia, and the - spears of damage and abandonment.

Lucy has some empathy with her mother and as she matures, becoming a parent herself, she understands – to a degree – that Julia she was doing the best that she could, with little support from the people who professed to love her. Bea, for reasons we eventually discover – “I never felt safe” - has no such capacity, and the darkness of her experience leads her into perpetual conflict with her mother, and down some very self-destructive paths. Hideous Kinky would have been a very different book if narrated by Bea.

Lucy herself is not undamaged – she is prone to obsession - and to some (unexpected) siblings she admits “how I’d searched for a family with every job I’d done. How often I’d adopted one, only to find it more precarious than my own. I’d chosen men – I was starting to discover this – loved them in direct relation to how likely they were to leave.”

Love, in this novel, is rarely grand. It’s hesitant and partial, a thing eked out in sideways glances and unfinished sentences. There’s a delicacy to the way Freud writes about romantic entanglement — especially the kind that brushes up against betrayal — that makes you feel more like a confidante than a reader.

My Sister and Other Lovers is a beautifully understated exploration of longing and memory. It doesn’t demand your attention; it earns it Loved it.

Some books pull you in effortlessly—this wasn’t one of them for me. I didn’t realize it was a follow-up to Hideous Kinky (which I haven’t read), and maybe that’s why I felt like I was always on the outside looking in. The writing is thoughtful capturing the messiness of sisterhood, love, and fractured family bonds, but the fragmented structure made it hard to fully connect.

Lucy and Bea’s relationship felt raw, shaped by a childhood that left scars neither of them knew how to heal. I wanted to love this book, but instead, I found myself struggling through it. Still, one line stayed with me: “The mistake we make is to think that love must be about possession.”

I’ve not read the first book this is based on, so maybe found it difficult to follow the story a bit. Freud is a great writer so I would definitely reach for something from her again

My Sister and Other Lovers features the two sisters Lucy and Bea and their Mother, from Esther Freud’s debut novel, the excellent Hideous Kinky. Since then Freud has written a number of novels but interestingly chose to return to these characters.

Bea and Lucy are teenagers when the story begins, in some respects the family seems as rootless ever, with their father refusing to buy them a house with a garden. Instead they end up at a large country house, in a commune. I really enjoyed this setting and the wide range of characters who populate the floors. The arc of the story follows the family until the sisters are in adulthood, with work and partners.

We learn that Bea cannot spend any time around their mother and Lucy tries, and pretty much fails, to be the glue that sticks the trio together.

As the title suggests we follow one character’s - Lucy’s - love life fairly closely. It’s full of unreliable men and failed promises.

I enjoyed this book a lot, particularly Esther Freud’s writing style. I liked the timeline which is loose and jumps into the next part of the story without too much structure. You never quite know precisely where and when you are going next in the story, although it is fairly linear, with just a few flashbacks in time.

A satisfying read and catch up with old friends whom I first read about before widespread internet use, podcasts, smart phones and so much else! I wanted to contact the author to ask her a question after reading Hideous Kinky, circa 1998, so wrote to her care of the publisher. Now I would probably tweet or send an email.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to an advance copy of this novel

I appreciated the talent in the writing style, although I found it hard to follow, with multiple characters, locations and time jumps. I did not know the author, and have never read Hideous Kinky or seen the film, so had no expectations. It is, as the title says, about the relationship between two sisters, who had an extremely unconventional, rather troubled, childhood. This has an effect on the relationships that the narrator experiences.

This was really for me think I was expecting something a little lighter it is well written despite my own my feelings towards it. Not for my tastes

I first read Hideous Kinky in 1992 when it was first published. I loved it! I’ve reread it numerous times since and never tire of it. One of my all time favourites and it introduced me to Esther Freud . I have all her books and so when I saw My Sister and Other Lovers on Netgalley I crossed my fingers and requested it. To my delight I was approved. Imagine my joy!
It was lovely to be back in Lucy and Bea’s world and see the women they became. I’ve enjoyed every word of this book. Esther’s writing is still pulling me in. The only criticism I have is sometimes I lost the thread of the story and didn’t realise the time and place had moved on. Probably my fault and not the writing. If you haven’t read Hideous Kinky I would definitely read it before My Sister, as much for the enjoyment as anything else. It will also help you understand the life Lucy and Bea lived as children. I can’t wait now for the hardback to be published as I have a space ready on my bookcase.
Thank you so much Netgalley and Esther Freud for the opportunity to read and share this amazing book.