Cherry Beach

She didn't know, because I knew she didn't feel the same way, and I was scared she would try to, so I hid it and encouraged myself to deny it, like a sickly feeling in your gut that you try to pretend isn't the beginning of food poisoning.

Hetty and Ness have been best friends since childhood. Hetty is captivating, the life of the party. Ness is a wallflower, hopelessly in love with her. Leaving Melbourne for the first time to live abroad, they take a room in a share house of creatives in Toronto's student quarter. Hetty disappears into bar-keeping and nightlife, while Ness drifts aimlessly. But when Ness finds Faith in the art gallery, an intense affair begins. Along with her friends and her job, at last her life starts to make sense. And Hetty's starts to fall apart, a mess of bad drugs and bad men. As winter freezes the lakeside city, the dark undercurrents of Hetty's character - dangerous obsessions, abusive relationships - become stronger. Ness may lose the person she loves more than anyone else in the world.

Laura McPhee-Browne's first novel is a revelatory and beautifully written story of friendship and self-discovery.


Genre: General Fiction