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.

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 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.