Esther Freud

'Full of pitch-perfect observation, spiced with wry humour. It is also a terrifically absorbing book, as authentic an evocation of the acting experience as you're ever likely to read' ObserverA captivating novel about the world of acting from the acclaimed author of I Couldn't Love You Any More, Hideous Kinky and Love FallsIt is their first day at Drama Arts, and the circle of huddled, nervous students are told in no uncertain terms that here, unlike at any other drama school, they will be taught to Act. To Be. To exist in their own world on the stage. But outside is the real world - a pitiless, alluring place in which each of them in their most fervent dreams, hopes to flourish and excel. Nell, insecure and dumpy, wonders if she will ever be cast as anything other than the maid. She'll never compete, she knows this, with the multitude of confident, long-legged beauties thronging the profession - most notably Charlie, whose effortless ascendance is nothing less than she expects. While Dan, ambitious and serious, has his sights fixed on Hamlet, as well as on fiery, rebellious Jemma. Over the following decade these young actors will grapple with haphazard tours, illogical auditions, unobtainable agents, deluxe caravans, rocky relationships and red-carpet premieres. This dazzling new novel from Esther Freud uncovers a world of ruthless ambition, uncertain alliances and the many-sided holy grail of Success.

Nine-year-old Tess has never seen anything like The Wild. An old bakery, converted into a home, it has a fireplace big enough to sit in, a garden with a badminton net and another one for vegetables. And then there's William, its owner. Single father of three, he cooks homemade ravioli, cuts trees down with a chainsaw and plays the guitar. When her mother, Francine, rents two rooms from him, Tess can hardly believe her luck. Her brother Jake, however, proves harder to convince. As the two grown-ups begin to fall for each other, Tess struggles to please the adults, as well as win Jake round. But she finds that good intentions don't always bring happiness and that adults are disturbingly capable of making mistakes.

Summer, 1914. It is Emanuel's twenty-first birthday, and eleven-year-old Eva and her sisters are helping transform Gaglow for a glorious party. But their brother's arrival is overshadowed by the talk of war that comes with him from Hamburg, and when he is wrenched from the family to serve his country, Eva knows that nothing will be the same again. Seventy-five years later, with the fall of the Berlin Wall, Sarah's father begins to tell her about Gaglow, the grand East German country estate that will now come back to them. Alternating between Sarah's bohemian life in London and her grandmother's childhood during the First World War, "Summer at Gaglow" unites four generations of an extraordinary family in a tale of loss and love.

Sixteen-year-old Lisa has high hopes for her first year in London. But squeezed into a temporary council flat with her bohemian mother and a little brother obsessed with foxes, she is not off to the best start. Ambitious to be more like her elusive, glamorous sister, Ruby, who lives life to the full, Lisa trails through the city, dabbling with drugs and romance, and refusing to lose faith in her belief that something fantastic will happen to mark the rest of her life.

It is July, three months after Lara's seventeenth birthday, and a week before Charles and Diana's Royal Wedding. When Lara's father, a man she barely knows, invites her to accompany him on holiday, she finds herself far away from the fumes of London's Holloway Road in the sun-scorched hillsides of Tuscany. There she meets the Willoughby family, rife with illicit alliances and vendettas. The more embroiled Lara becomes with them, and with the carelessly beautiful Kip, the more consumed she is with doubt, curiosity and dread. And so begins her intoxicating, troubled journey into self discovery and across the very fine line between childhood and what lies beyond.

The architect Klaus Lehmann loves his wife, Elsa, with a passion that continues throughout their married life, despite long periods of separation. Almost half a century after Lehmann's death in the village of Steerborough, a young woman, Lily, arrives to research his life and work. Poring over Klaus's letters to Elsa, Lily pieces together the story of their lives. And alone in her rented cottage by the sea, she begins to sense an absence in her own life that may not be filled by simply going home.

When her mother decides to take her and her sister away from life as they know it and move to Morocco, a five-year-old English school girl embarks on an adventure-filled romp through northern Africa

The thirtieth anniversary edition of a twentieth century classic - an unforgettable journey through 1960s Morocco, based on the author's own childhoodFor fans of Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals, Laurie Lee's Cider With Rosie and Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray LoveQuirky, charming and suffused the footloose spirit of the sixties, this is the irresistible story of an English woman who decides on a whim to move herself and her two young daughters to Morocco. The ensuing adventure takes them through richly perfumed markets, dilapidated hotels and mystical Sufi retreats, via friendships and feuds, romances with nomadic street performers, hitch-hiking and nights camping by the coast - all seen through the eyes of a precocious five-year-old girl. Rediscover this transporting modern classic about the spirit of freedom, filled with the sights, smells and textures of twentieth century Morocco.