Allen & Unwin The Exclusives book Fiction English Paperback 384 pages

A heartbreaking story of friendship and betrayal - can we ever forgive the ones we love the most?

1996. Freya Seymour and Josephine Grey are invincible - beautiful and brilliant, the two best friends are on the cusp of Oxbridge, and the success they always dreamed they'd share.2014. Freya gets in touch, looking for a conversation Josephine has run away from for eighteen long and tortured years. Beginning with one ill-fated night, The Exclusives charts the agonising spiral of friendship gone wrong, the heartache and betrayal of letting down those closest to you and the poisonous possibilities of what we wouldn't do when everything we prize is placed under threat. And in the end, as she realises she cannot run forever, Josephine must answer one question: is it Freya she cannot face, or is it her own darkest secret?The Exclusives is Rebecca Thornton's powerful debut novel about friendship and tragedy at an exclusive boarding school.

Rebecca Thornton is a journalist and runs an online advertising business. Her work has been published in Prospect Magazine, Daily Mail, The Jewish News and The Sunday People. She was Acting Editor of an arts and culture magazine based in Jordan, and she's reported from Kosovo, London, and the Middle East. Rebecca is an alumna of the Faber Academy writing-a-novel course, where she was tutored by Esther Freud and Tim Lott.