My Sister and Other Lovers

Both delicate and profound – about how relationships bind us together and pull us apart -- Tracy Chevalier
Freud's control is masterful * Irish Times *
A novel with the sharp tang of memory … I was swept up into this world of visceral intimacies, the fraught but powerful relationships between the main characters more than gripping enough to carry me along … It’s the relationship between the sisters that lies at the heart of the novel, and Freud teases out its various pressure points with delicate, moving effect … This beguiling story of female experience and family ties is well worth the three-decade wait * Financial Times *
Freud exposes the tensions of their sisterly bond – messy, mistake-strewn and quietly marvellous – with tender charm * Mail on Sunday *
Fact and fiction intermingle, but this elegant novel is more than memoir * Irish Examiner *
In 1992 Esther Freud’s semi-autobiographical debut novel Hideous Kinky made her a name in the books world ... It was charming, fast-paced - and soon made into a film. So a sequel was a risk, but one which has paid off .... It captures everything from crushes to painful heels to heroin addiction, all in intense vignettes. A highly impressive account * The Times, The best books of 2025 so far — our critics’ picks *
Freud is brilliant at capturing the time in a personal and a global sense … The details are so vivid you feel like you’re remembering the events yourself … it demands and rewards close attention * The Times *
Lucy’s bruising but always engrossing passage from child to adulthood provides the arc here, and we’re deeply with her at every moment ... Freud’s alternately painful and funny story may cleave close to her fascinating life, but it begs larger questions, too, as Lucy’s insight grows into the lasting legacy of her rootless bohemian upbringing * Daily Mail *
A soulful, semi-autographical tale about finding your place in the world * Good Housekeeping, The 20 best books out in July *
Gorgeous and sad and gripping and moving - brutally honest about our search for love -- Marian Keyes
Uncovering the raw, unspoken truths of sisterhood - from love and rivalry to unhealed wounds - this novel delves into the best and worst parts of growing up * Elle *
Esther Freud’s latest work is a moving novel about sisterhood, secrets, betrayal and love * Sheerluxe *
There is a subtle charm to each of Lucy’s lovers that slowly unravels as she learns and relearns the unreliability of everyone around her, while Bea’s distanced love encourages Lucy to open her mind to the possibility of love without possession * Big Issue *
Despite the darkness of much of its subject matter, My Sister and Other Lovers is a spirited and funny book ... Above all else, the novel is an exploration of what it means to have a great love that is founded in shared adversity but still move past and through it – less a reckoning with the past than an acceptance of it. It is about learning how to love gently and with forbearance. It is a novel of deep compassion and grace * Saturday Paper *
My Sister and Other Lovers is billed as a novel but arguably occupies an interesting grey area between novel and memoir, resisting the expectations of both and creating something all of its own … a fascinating tangle of fact and fiction that refuses easy answers, and a subtle, clever, evocative book -- Joanna Quinn * Guardian Book of the day *
Frank, tender and unequivocal - Esther Freud brings us directly inside the beating and bleeding hearts of her characters. I loved this -- Miranda Cowley Heller
Esther Freud is that rare thing - a writer who trusts the intelligence of her readers ... My Sister and Other Lovers details the profound and complex nature of love and family. Spare, moving and beautifully written -- Jojo Moyes
A novel that inquires deeply into the tangled nature of family * The Gloss *
Getting to know it slowly page by page has been like getting to know a person whom you know, by the end, you have grown to love ... It’s a triumph of a book. Elegant and luminous and incredibly moving. I am telling everyone about it - it will stay with me for a very long time -- Rachel Joyce
Lucy’s narration is sparky and chatty, as honest about her mistakes as about her triumphs, and it is the honesty of the search, as well as the delightful exuberance of Freud’s humour, that makes this book such a hugely enjoyable experience * The Tablet *
I loved it and gulped it down in a day ... Such sparse, elegant writing, yet still somehow gloriously vivid and deeply intense. So alive is each character now in my mind, so involved was I in their stories that I can still sense them beside me, and long to continue the conversation ... This will go down a storm -- Gill Hornby
From now on, whenever I hear anyone refer to anything as "Freudian" I am going to assume they mean prose that's slender and perfect and sparkling. I'm stricken with love for this book -- Meg Mason
I Ioved this book. Freud captures so many moments that are universal to many - falling in love, navigating parents, making mistakes, and all told with wonderful compassion -- Hannah Rothschild
This gorgeous stark engrossing tale of sisterhood, daughterhood and everything in between will own you -- Sam Baker
How I loved this elegant novel. What sheer pleasure it is to be back in such sure and stylish hands. Esther Freud is peerless! -- Francesca Segal
Dazzling * Sainsburys Magazine *
I loved My Sister and Other Lovers as I have loved each and every one of Esther Freud’s books: she writes with an emotional deftness that is pearl-like, and captures sisterly love in all of its complex, tender, simmering ferocious glory -- Sophie Dahl
An absolute pleasure to read ... An exquisite, elliptical novel, written with cool restraint: every sentence, every word, feels perfectly judged. How lovely to be in the hands of a writer who fully trusts her reader to come along with her and swim through the gaps without needing everything to be spelled out. What a joy this book is -- Rebecca Wait
A non-stop delight … I couldn't love it more … It makes one want to clap hands and dance. It’s all so beautifully evoked, so vividly sensual -- Barbara Trapido

What a total delight to re-encounter the irrepressible sisters from Hideous Kinky, a little older, wilder, wiser and discovering the punky joys of music, drama, love and adventure in 1970s London

-- Amanda Craig
My Sister and Other Lovers is such absorbing, quick-on-its feet reading, a lovely companion. Freud's particular mixture of gentle touch and deep echo is there on every page. What a writer she is -- Susannah Clapp
A coming-of-age portrait of sisterhood and betrayal from the author of Hideous Kinky * Guardian, the books to look forward to in 2025 *
Praise for Esther Freud: ‘Freud is a modern literary rarity: a born storyteller * The Times *
As close to a perfect novel as anything I’ve read in a long time. I loved every page of it -- Ann Patchett
We know we’re alive because of the stories we tell each other, and the things we make, and the people we love, and that’s all we ever get. Freud knows that, and it is good to be reminded * Guardian *
The sharp intimacy of the writing is ... full of compassion and a profound decency * Sunday Times *
In a culture which dins with brashness and self-advertisement, attending to Esther Freud's still, truthful voice becomes not only a pleasure but a necessity -- Jonathan Coe
Exquisite ... Delivers an emotional punch that left me in tears -- Rachel Joyce
You will weep with happiness and sadness -- Emma Barnett
I read it non-stop through the night, finding myself simultaneously uplifted and wrung out by the emotional power of the story and by its ambitious social and historical range. It couldn't be better -- Barbara Trapido
Beautiful, moving, wonderful -- Sam Baker
Freud is a consummate novelist. Her work is always intensely imagined and vividly observed, her characters alive … her story page-turning, complex and emotionally satisfying * Spectator *
Written with precision and poignancy ... It left me feeling hopeful * Literary Review *