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My Sister and Other Lovers: A Novel
A stirring novel from the author of I Couldn’t Love You More and Hideous Kinky: the story of two sisters who couldn’t be more different and the great love that holds them together throughout a tumultuous youth
For as long as Elise can remember, she’s been caught between love for her rootless mother and devotion to her fierce and exacting sister, Bea. From their peripatetic childhood to their restless teenage years—hitching through rural Ireland, the move to a communal house—she’s been forced to make a choice between these two very different ways of approaching life.
But as the girls come of age and embark on their own experiments—in love, drugs, work, motherhood—Bea is at risk of drifting further and further away. Can their loyalty to each other transcend the damages of a past that feels almost too dangerous to examine?
With scalpel-sharp insight, Esther Freud excavates the most intimate relationships of our lives, laying bare the fear and longing, the secrets and mistrust. My Sister and Other Lovers is an irresistible exploration of love, family, and freedom in all its forms.
For as long as Elise can remember, she’s been caught between love for her rootless mother and devotion to her fierce and exacting sister, Bea. From their peripatetic childhood to their restless teenage years—hitching through rural Ireland, the move to a communal house—she’s been forced to make a choice between these two very different ways of approaching life.
But as the girls come of age and embark on their own experiments—in love, drugs, work, motherhood—Bea is at risk of drifting further and further away. Can their loyalty to each other transcend the damages of a past that feels almost too dangerous to examine?
With scalpel-sharp insight, Esther Freud excavates the most intimate relationships of our lives, laying bare the fear and longing, the secrets and mistrust. My Sister and Other Lovers is an irresistible exploration of love, family, and freedom in all its forms.
1 pages, Audio CD
Published August 5, 2025
95 people are currently reading
6828 people want to read
About the author
Esther Freud
37 books278 followersEsther Freud was born in London in 1963. As a young child she travelled through Morocco with her mother and sister, returning to England aged six where she attended a Rudolf Steiner school in Sussex.
In 1979 she moved to London to study Drama, going on to work as an actress, both in theatre and television, and forming her own company with fellow actress/writer Kitty Aldridge - The Norfolk Broads.
Her first novel Hideous Kinky, was published in 1992 and was shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and made into a film starring Kate Winslet. In 1993, after the publication of her second novel, Peerless Flats, she was named by Granta as one of the Best of Young Novelists under 40.
She has since written seven novels, including The Sea House, Love Falls and Lucky Break. She also writes stories, articles and travel pieces for newspapers and magazines, and teaches creative writing, in her own local group and at the Faber Academy.
Her most recent book, Mr Mac and Me, was published in September 2014. She lives in London with her husband, the actor David Morrissey, and their three children.
In 1979 she moved to London to study Drama, going on to work as an actress, both in theatre and television, and forming her own company with fellow actress/writer Kitty Aldridge - The Norfolk Broads.
Her first novel Hideous Kinky, was published in 1992 and was shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and made into a film starring Kate Winslet. In 1993, after the publication of her second novel, Peerless Flats, she was named by Granta as one of the Best of Young Novelists under 40.
She has since written seven novels, including The Sea House, Love Falls and Lucky Break. She also writes stories, articles and travel pieces for newspapers and magazines, and teaches creative writing, in her own local group and at the Faber Academy.
Her most recent book, Mr Mac and Me, was published in September 2014. She lives in London with her husband, the actor David Morrissey, and their three children.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 88 reviews
March 22, 2025
Thirty years ago, Esther Freud wrote Hideous Kinky, a wonderful novel about a bohemian young mother and her two daughters, an unnamed five-year-old narrator and her older sister Bea, who travel to Morrocco and live an itinerate but adventure-filled life. I loved that book and recently revisited it when the online journal BookBrowse asked me to write about a favorite, lesser-known 20th century classic.
So, what a delight to meet up once again with these old friends in My Sister and Other Lovers, to reenter the lives of the now-named-narrator Lucy and sister Bea, and to follow them from the turmoil of their teens to full adulthood. The novel reads as a series of linked short stories, and each chapter provides a brief look into an important moment of life before a curtain falls and the next chapter begins. As readers, we start to focus on the swirling variations and patterns that define the sisters’ relationships with one another and with their family, friends, and lovers, and we see how darker betrayals of the past dog both women into their adulthoods.
Like her painter father, author Freud is meticulous at catching every line, shadow and nuance in her (presumably somewhat) autobiographical world-building. Much as Lucy works with fabric and thread, the author adeptly weaves together disparate sensory details: the thoughtless, impulsive acts; the freedom of utter abandon; the ache of loss; the half-remembered, tossed-off phrases that become important only in retrospect; the sudden shocking revelations; the nauseating panic of true disaster; the many close calls that turn out just fine; the dull unspooling of a dying relationship; the communication misses and the electric spark of new connections. All these moments add up to complex and conscious lives, and Freud delivers the goods in a spectacular way. I highly recommend this novel.
My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC.
So, what a delight to meet up once again with these old friends in My Sister and Other Lovers, to reenter the lives of the now-named-narrator Lucy and sister Bea, and to follow them from the turmoil of their teens to full adulthood. The novel reads as a series of linked short stories, and each chapter provides a brief look into an important moment of life before a curtain falls and the next chapter begins. As readers, we start to focus on the swirling variations and patterns that define the sisters’ relationships with one another and with their family, friends, and lovers, and we see how darker betrayals of the past dog both women into their adulthoods.
Like her painter father, author Freud is meticulous at catching every line, shadow and nuance in her (presumably somewhat) autobiographical world-building. Much as Lucy works with fabric and thread, the author adeptly weaves together disparate sensory details: the thoughtless, impulsive acts; the freedom of utter abandon; the ache of loss; the half-remembered, tossed-off phrases that become important only in retrospect; the sudden shocking revelations; the nauseating panic of true disaster; the many close calls that turn out just fine; the dull unspooling of a dying relationship; the communication misses and the electric spark of new connections. All these moments add up to complex and conscious lives, and Freud delivers the goods in a spectacular way. I highly recommend this novel.
My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC.
November 27, 2025
2.5 ⭐️
Some books pull you in effortlessly—this wasn’t one of them for me. I didn’t realize it was a follow-up to Hideous Kinky (which I haven’t read), and maybe that’s why I felt like I was always on the outside looking in. The writing is thoughtful capturing the messiness of sisterhood, love, and fractured family bonds, but the fragmented structure made it hard to fully connect.
Lucy and Bea’s relationship felt raw, shaped by a childhood that left scars neither of them knew how to heal. I wanted to love this book, but instead, I found myself struggling through it. Still, one line stayed with me: “The mistake we make is to think that love must be about possession.”
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an advance copy of this novel.
Some books pull you in effortlessly—this wasn’t one of them for me. I didn’t realize it was a follow-up to Hideous Kinky (which I haven’t read), and maybe that’s why I felt like I was always on the outside looking in. The writing is thoughtful capturing the messiness of sisterhood, love, and fractured family bonds, but the fragmented structure made it hard to fully connect.
Lucy and Bea’s relationship felt raw, shaped by a childhood that left scars neither of them knew how to heal. I wanted to love this book, but instead, I found myself struggling through it. Still, one line stayed with me: “The mistake we make is to think that love must be about possession.”
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an advance copy of this novel.
September 6, 2025
One of my very favorite writers ever as soon as i finished this i thought i want to read it again. seemed like a continuation of Hideous Kinky the later years. i know its part novel part autobiography. I love to hear about their wild bohemian up bringing ,which was sometimes good sometimes damaging. I love the two sisters lying on the floor talking smoking sometimes drinking,two very different girls much like me and my sister. we are so different but that family thread runs through us .We don`t always get along have had fierce fights .now that we are older (today i am 72) we talk endlessly our memories differ so much but we have always lived far far apart so when we are together we talk ourselves to sleep,and cry when we have to part. beautiful read.I bought it for myself for this birthday.
May 12, 2025
Review to follow one week before publication date.
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.
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.
June 14, 2025
Thanks to @eccobooks for the free advanced copy of #MySisterAndOtherLovers for my pool day today. This literary fiction book from the author of Hideous Kinky is not my typical style, but it’s good to get outside of our comfort zones once in awhile.
The writing is thoughtful and transparent. It is a continuation of the characters from Hideous Kinky- which I recommend you’ve read first before this one. It explores the complicated relationships we have with our siblings who have had the same growing up experience.
“Do you wonder why I stay with him?”
“I do wonder that occasionally.”
“It’s hard,” I said “to leave a man who’s never really there.”
Book to be published 8/5/25
#gifted #litfic #eccobooks
The writing is thoughtful and transparent. It is a continuation of the characters from Hideous Kinky- which I recommend you’ve read first before this one. It explores the complicated relationships we have with our siblings who have had the same growing up experience.
“Do you wonder why I stay with him?”
“I do wonder that occasionally.”
“It’s hard,” I said “to leave a man who’s never really there.”
Book to be published 8/5/25
#gifted #litfic #eccobooks
June 27, 2025
A great novel about sisters, mothers and daughters, love and (dysfunctional) families. Although I’ve seen the Hideous Kinky film, this was the first book of Freud I read and I really liked her writing!
Thank you Bloomsbury and Netgalley UK for the ARC.
Thank you Bloomsbury and Netgalley UK for the ARC.
August 3, 2025
I enjoyed picking up with Sophie and Bea and learning how their childhood shaped their later years, however I found the episodic nature of the storytelling difficult to follow, a dizzying array of characters came and went without ever developing and key themes like the powerful storytelling in chapter one about the mum’s parents in Ireland were introduced and then abandoned.
November 10, 2025
3.5 stars
My Sister and Other Lovers is my first Esther Freud novel, though Hideous Kinky has been sitting on my to-read list for years—and now I can see why people rave about her. Freud’s writing has that quiet, hypnotic quality that sneaks up on you.
The story follows sisters Elise and Bea through a free-spirited, sometimes fractured youth—bohemian communes, reckless love affairs, and the constant pull between independence and belonging. Freud captures the ache of sisterhood perfectly: the love that steadies you, and the resentment that simmers just beneath it.
That said, the novel occasionally wanders, its time jumps and tangents as unruly as the lives it depicts. But when it lands, it really lands—raw, intimate, and aching with nostalgia. My Sister and Other Lovers might not dazzle every page, but it lingers, tender and true, like a memory you’re not quite ready to let go.
My Sister and Other Lovers is my first Esther Freud novel, though Hideous Kinky has been sitting on my to-read list for years—and now I can see why people rave about her. Freud’s writing has that quiet, hypnotic quality that sneaks up on you.
The story follows sisters Elise and Bea through a free-spirited, sometimes fractured youth—bohemian communes, reckless love affairs, and the constant pull between independence and belonging. Freud captures the ache of sisterhood perfectly: the love that steadies you, and the resentment that simmers just beneath it.
That said, the novel occasionally wanders, its time jumps and tangents as unruly as the lives it depicts. But when it lands, it really lands—raw, intimate, and aching with nostalgia. My Sister and Other Lovers might not dazzle every page, but it lingers, tender and true, like a memory you’re not quite ready to let go.
July 2, 2025
I’m too much of an introvert to keep up with all those different characters xoxo
October 6, 2025
I hesitate to count this as read because I skimmed so much of it... I loved Hideous Kinky (especially the movie), and I loved all the scenes in this involving the sisters and the mother. The lovers though... I just wasn't interested. there are some really good scenes in here, though. I liked the younger sister making a movie about their childhood especially.
January 24, 2026
I am obsessed with the Freud sisters sorry
October 6, 2025
#gifted
For as long as Lucy can remember, she’s been caught between love for her rootless, idealistic mother and devotion to her fierce and exacting sister, Bea. Their childhood—hitchhiking across Ireland, life in communal houses, the dream and chaos of Morocco—has the shimmer of freedom but the shadow of neglect. Little brother Max is also caught up in the swirl of it all, and you get the sense that their mother is living completely in her own head as she follows one exciting plan after another, without ever thinking whether she is an inconvenience or unwelcome.
At first, their nomadic existence feels exciting and full of possibility. But as the girls grow older, the adventure begins to fray. What once seemed liberating starts to feel unstable; what once glowed with warmth now feels steeped in sadness.
This novel has that unmistakable autofictional quality, is intimate, slightly disorienting, and is so steeped in emotional truth that it feels like memory. Through Lucy’s eyes, we see a mother who is both loving and reckless, living from one impulsive decision to the next, and two sisters who bear the weight of her chaos in different ways. Freud captures perfectly how siblings can share a childhood but emerge from it as though from two different worlds, one trying to please and smooth over the cracks, the other pushing against them in fury.
Despite its whimsical cover, this is not a gentle read. It’s dark and sad, filled with moments of quiet danger, loneliness and longing. Their mother, Julia, feels forever caught in her own head chasing one exciting plan after another, moving through life with a manic energy that leaves her children perpetually unmoored. Lucy’s anxious efforts to appease reluctant hosts and make herself welcome broke my heart; it’s that desperate empathy children of chaotic parents often learn too young.
The book’s structure mirrors that same instability; shifts in time and place happen without warning, so you’re left momentarily lost, unsure where or when you’ve landed. It can be frustrating, but perhaps that confusion is intentional: a way to draw us into Lucy’s fractured perspective and the uncertainty that defines her life.
This is a novel about unreliable narrators, blurred memories, and the impossible loyalty of family. I often found myself wishing Lucy and Bea had spoken more to each other instead of taking sides between two deeply flawed parents, but perhaps silence is its own kind of survival.
Freud’s writing is sharp, elegant, and full of emotional nuance. It is a study of love and damage and how we learn to carry both. It’s not an uplifting read, but it lingers long after the final page, the kind of story that leaves a quiet ache.
Read if you love: literary fiction, unreliable narrators, sister stories, melancholic coming-of-age tales.
Thank you to the publisher for kindly sending me a finished copy. As always, all opinions my own.
For as long as Lucy can remember, she’s been caught between love for her rootless, idealistic mother and devotion to her fierce and exacting sister, Bea. Their childhood—hitchhiking across Ireland, life in communal houses, the dream and chaos of Morocco—has the shimmer of freedom but the shadow of neglect. Little brother Max is also caught up in the swirl of it all, and you get the sense that their mother is living completely in her own head as she follows one exciting plan after another, without ever thinking whether she is an inconvenience or unwelcome.
At first, their nomadic existence feels exciting and full of possibility. But as the girls grow older, the adventure begins to fray. What once seemed liberating starts to feel unstable; what once glowed with warmth now feels steeped in sadness.
This novel has that unmistakable autofictional quality, is intimate, slightly disorienting, and is so steeped in emotional truth that it feels like memory. Through Lucy’s eyes, we see a mother who is both loving and reckless, living from one impulsive decision to the next, and two sisters who bear the weight of her chaos in different ways. Freud captures perfectly how siblings can share a childhood but emerge from it as though from two different worlds, one trying to please and smooth over the cracks, the other pushing against them in fury.
Despite its whimsical cover, this is not a gentle read. It’s dark and sad, filled with moments of quiet danger, loneliness and longing. Their mother, Julia, feels forever caught in her own head chasing one exciting plan after another, moving through life with a manic energy that leaves her children perpetually unmoored. Lucy’s anxious efforts to appease reluctant hosts and make herself welcome broke my heart; it’s that desperate empathy children of chaotic parents often learn too young.
The book’s structure mirrors that same instability; shifts in time and place happen without warning, so you’re left momentarily lost, unsure where or when you’ve landed. It can be frustrating, but perhaps that confusion is intentional: a way to draw us into Lucy’s fractured perspective and the uncertainty that defines her life.
This is a novel about unreliable narrators, blurred memories, and the impossible loyalty of family. I often found myself wishing Lucy and Bea had spoken more to each other instead of taking sides between two deeply flawed parents, but perhaps silence is its own kind of survival.
Freud’s writing is sharp, elegant, and full of emotional nuance. It is a study of love and damage and how we learn to carry both. It’s not an uplifting read, but it lingers long after the final page, the kind of story that leaves a quiet ache.
Read if you love: literary fiction, unreliable narrators, sister stories, melancholic coming-of-age tales.
Thank you to the publisher for kindly sending me a finished copy. As always, all opinions my own.
January 24, 2026
3.75. Absolutely LOVED returning to this dysfunctional codependent trio, Lucy, Bea and their hopeless mother. It made me both want to return to Hideous Kinky and fast forward to the next book to see what happens to them all in the future. Steadfast, furious, charismatic, hurting Bea has a tough ride of it, yet again, dealing with her many abandonments, facing up to the inadequacy of her itinerant and selfish mother. Lucy is more measured, able to forgive their mother for her failings despite seeing them clearly, struggling with her own marriage troubles, an intense experience of new motherhood and veering towards following in her mothers footsteps by roaming around constantly, feeling lost in new palces, having terrible adventures, as well as trying to find a real steady home for herself.
As aslways Freud's emotional astuteness astounds me. I love these characters. I loved the descriptions of Bea's wild party days in London, the descriptions of lavish dinners with their distant, brilliant, heroic, awful Father 'there are 3 boys?'. Loved the way new siblings kept popping up all over the place 'how many is it he has now...35?' Lucian, you dog. So much sadness amongst the upper classes - this book is tough, it looks face on at multiple suicides, sexual abuse, self-harm, heroin addiction, infidelity and abortion, but it never feels heavy. How does she do it?
It can feel hard to keep track of chronology and setting in this book, which I think it deliberate...events blur into each other with no breaks, it can be jarring and confusing, but I think I understand why....the patchiness of memory, the disabled sense of time when you have been hurt or endelssly forced to be uprooted.
As aslways Freud's emotional astuteness astounds me. I love these characters. I loved the descriptions of Bea's wild party days in London, the descriptions of lavish dinners with their distant, brilliant, heroic, awful Father 'there are 3 boys?'. Loved the way new siblings kept popping up all over the place 'how many is it he has now...35?' Lucian, you dog. So much sadness amongst the upper classes - this book is tough, it looks face on at multiple suicides, sexual abuse, self-harm, heroin addiction, infidelity and abortion, but it never feels heavy. How does she do it?
It can feel hard to keep track of chronology and setting in this book, which I think it deliberate...events blur into each other with no breaks, it can be jarring and confusing, but I think I understand why....the patchiness of memory, the disabled sense of time when you have been hurt or endelssly forced to be uprooted.
November 21, 2025
Thanks Netgalley and author for an arc in exchange for a honest review.
My Sister and Other Lovers follows sisters Lucy and Bea as they navigate complicated family ties, fractured communication, and the lingering impact of their past. Told in three parts with alternating perspectives, the story explores sisterhood, secrets, and the messy work of trying to rebuild relationships both within their family and with the men who have shaped their lives.
I read this using both the audiobook and the eARC, and honestly, the audio carried the experience for me. The voice actors did a great job bringing the characters to life, and the narration felt more manageable than the written format.
I was immediately intrigued by the premise, but I quickly learned that this is actually Book 2 in a series, something I wish had been noted more clearly. Without that context, I often felt like I had been dropped into the middle of a story that had already unfolded, and it made certain emotional beats harder to connect with.
At times, the pacing felt choppy, and several characters didn’t seem to add much to the overall arc. What did stand out, though, was the raw, tense dynamic between the sisters and their mother. The author does portray the difficulty of having honest, painful conversations within a family that rang true and relatable.
Still, I found myself wondering whether things were supposed to improve for these characters. The tension and dysfunction felt constant, and I never got the payoff or emotional shift I was hoping for. There were glimpses of genuine sisterhood between Lucy and Bea that I enjoyed, but overall the story felt a bit chaotic and unresolved to me. If I had read Book 1 first I would’ve enjoyed more but as a standalone experience, this one left me mixed.
My Sister and Other Lovers follows sisters Lucy and Bea as they navigate complicated family ties, fractured communication, and the lingering impact of their past. Told in three parts with alternating perspectives, the story explores sisterhood, secrets, and the messy work of trying to rebuild relationships both within their family and with the men who have shaped their lives.
I read this using both the audiobook and the eARC, and honestly, the audio carried the experience for me. The voice actors did a great job bringing the characters to life, and the narration felt more manageable than the written format.
I was immediately intrigued by the premise, but I quickly learned that this is actually Book 2 in a series, something I wish had been noted more clearly. Without that context, I often felt like I had been dropped into the middle of a story that had already unfolded, and it made certain emotional beats harder to connect with.
At times, the pacing felt choppy, and several characters didn’t seem to add much to the overall arc. What did stand out, though, was the raw, tense dynamic between the sisters and their mother. The author does portray the difficulty of having honest, painful conversations within a family that rang true and relatable.
Still, I found myself wondering whether things were supposed to improve for these characters. The tension and dysfunction felt constant, and I never got the payoff or emotional shift I was hoping for. There were glimpses of genuine sisterhood between Lucy and Bea that I enjoyed, but overall the story felt a bit chaotic and unresolved to me. If I had read Book 1 first I would’ve enjoyed more but as a standalone experience, this one left me mixed.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 22, 2025
A complex listen which involved lots of playbacks. I can see why the author narrated it herself to get the correct rhythm and nuances. Definitely one to read too and would make an interesting group book. However, might not get nominated as people would need to read Hideous Kinky first, or watch the film, plus it requires a long discussion. The prose is beautiful and the style works well. I was reminded - positively - of the writing of Tessa Hadley and Zadie Smith. Another reason I was interested in the family is that I have recently studied Great Granny Webster written by caroline Blackwood another of Lucien Freud’s muses. Sibling and family relationships, politics, secrets and lies, sexual abuse and the trauma of pregnancy termination are vividly described. Morocco, Ireland, Scotland and England all provide authentic backgrounds.
October 12, 2025
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars.
It is not the sort of genre I normally read. It must have been recommended somewhere, but I do not remember exactly. The first chapter was hard to get through, not knowing who was who in the story. Even after finishing the book, I feel the need to go over again to work out each character in the story. I must have got used to the author’s writing style, dream-like and not necessarily in the order of the timeline. By the time I finished the book, I thought to myself, “It was not too bad!”, especially the description of the protagonist’s inner feelings, which is brilliant.
It is not the sort of genre I normally read. It must have been recommended somewhere, but I do not remember exactly. The first chapter was hard to get through, not knowing who was who in the story. Even after finishing the book, I feel the need to go over again to work out each character in the story. I must have got used to the author’s writing style, dream-like and not necessarily in the order of the timeline. By the time I finished the book, I thought to myself, “It was not too bad!”, especially the description of the protagonist’s inner feelings, which is brilliant.
September 6, 2025
it was okay! host of confusing characters particularly in the middle section and constantly felt I was missing a whole load of information maybe better if I had read the previous book
September 25, 2025
There is semi-detailed talk about the main character getting an abortion and there were absolutely no TW or anything mentioned at the beginning of the audiobook that there may be triggering topics for some readers. I will not be finishing this book. I dnf’d at 28%.
February 2, 2026
10/10!
July 13, 2025
As always a pleasure. Both stylish and soulful I tore through this book in stolen moments.
August 10, 2025
so many novels concerning the troubled relationships between mothers and daughters, there must be a reason for this?
perhaps the implication is that very few women get it right, and the mother/daughter situation is destined to be fraught with difficulties, children in general blam.ing their parents for every subsequent issue in life thereafter.
I wonder how it is we continue to produce offspring when we're just setting ourselves up for failure!!
To be fair, she was one crazy lady, this mother, so suppose she is responsible for the various traumas experienced by her hapless girls.
Not sure if I really gained anything positive from reading this novel. Confused and rather saddened that there was no tangible ending.
Don't think I'd rush to read another of hers.
perhaps the implication is that very few women get it right, and the mother/daughter situation is destined to be fraught with difficulties, children in general blam.ing their parents for every subsequent issue in life thereafter.
I wonder how it is we continue to produce offspring when we're just setting ourselves up for failure!!
To be fair, she was one crazy lady, this mother, so suppose she is responsible for the various traumas experienced by her hapless girls.
Not sure if I really gained anything positive from reading this novel. Confused and rather saddened that there was no tangible ending.
Don't think I'd rush to read another of hers.
July 31, 2025
Just okay, I was intrigued enough to keep reading, but the rambling end section left me feeling unsatisfied.
November 16, 2025
Lovely book. If you like Dolly Alderton’s ‘Everything I Know About Love’ or Patti Smith’s ‘Just Kids’ - you’ll love this.
September 1, 2025
Loved it. Movie with Kate Winslet please
August 3, 2025
I loved Hideous Kinky and now this sequel. The story of family love and betrayal. Characters come and go as people do in life. Freud writes beautifully, you are always left catching up with the story which is sometimes told sparingly. At times a devastating read but a story of survival.
July 11, 2025
This book makes me feel like I have dropped into someone elses live in a novel with any entrance and understanding of the family.
September 19, 2025
While I was reading this novel, I watched bits of the film Hideous Kinky on YouTube. The film is fictional representation of the childhood of the writer, and her sister and mother – when their mother who moves from London to Morocco with her two young daughters in the early 1970s. “Hideous kinky” is the phrase that the young sisters would murmur to each other when events became too strange or too confusing. And there is a lot of confusion in that time of their lives. The film is good – and is a useful backdrop to this novel as well. This book is narrated by Lucy, the younger of the two sisters.
Of this book, Freud says: “It’s probably my most autobiographical work yet. I wanted to write about how hard it is for somebody when the two people they most love don’t get along. There’s always a reason, and I wanted to look at these difficult, shame-ridden secrets that are embedded in almost every family. I’m using the framework of my own family, then going off into territory that fiction is so brilliant at examining.” (https://observer.co.uk/culture/books/...#) She also said: “So it is with trepidation that I have returned to the central relationships at the heart of my first novel. My Sister and Other Lovers draws on the themes that shaped my writing – family, loyalty, division – the completion of which has coincided with the new storytelling career of my fashion designer sister, Bella”. (https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...)
One reviewer describes the book thus: “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. It has three parts, each showing Lucy and Bea [her sister] at different points in their lives, but doesn’t provide dates. Some characters appear in all three sections, but others simply vanish; unusual in a novel, yet close to the way life really is. Similarly, the decision not to name either parent in the book – they are always “mother” or “father” – seems both a refusal to identify them and a refusal to fictionalise.” (https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...) The chapters often feel more akin to short stories — interlinked, but ultimately discrete units.
The book opens in the 1970s, the narrator’s mother has a new son from another failed relationship, and the family is on a ferry to Ireland where the mother’s family lives. They have nowhere to live – a constant kind of refrain in their lives. The family lacks stability and is therefore quite vulnerable. One reviewer notes: “Sensing opportunity, men sniff about the sisters: they are girls without boundaries, grateful for any attention. This is a pre-#MeToo, pre-internet, pre-smartphone world. Messages are left on answering machines. Letters are left with pub barmen. Children are left with strangers. “I love your mother,” says one of Lucy’s friends later. “Remember how she never minded what we did?”” (https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...) The writer is very non-judgemental about her upbringings – what she cares about is mitigating conflict in the family, especially between her sister and mother. She also says: “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.”
I really loved this book – there is an absolute truth about the people and the relationships in it. I agree with this reviewer: “Despite the darkness of much of its subject matter, My Sister and Other Lovers is a spirited and funny book. Lucy is a wry observer of her surroundings and of other people – Freud has a particular skill in capturing the voices and dialogue of the charismatic and eccentric characters with whom Lucy falls in – and many of her youthful escapades in particular are madcap and relayed with real joy.” (https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/c...) I also really liked the way the book unfolds, in that it is a series of episodes, sometimes with year in between, with the impact of a kind of floating porous set of memories. One of the ideas that the book is exploring is the unreliability of any one perspective – that individuals remember family events quite differently – and the style of the book really accentuates this theme.
Of this book, Freud says: “It’s probably my most autobiographical work yet. I wanted to write about how hard it is for somebody when the two people they most love don’t get along. There’s always a reason, and I wanted to look at these difficult, shame-ridden secrets that are embedded in almost every family. I’m using the framework of my own family, then going off into territory that fiction is so brilliant at examining.” (https://observer.co.uk/culture/books/...#) She also said: “So it is with trepidation that I have returned to the central relationships at the heart of my first novel. My Sister and Other Lovers draws on the themes that shaped my writing – family, loyalty, division – the completion of which has coincided with the new storytelling career of my fashion designer sister, Bella”. (https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...)
One reviewer describes the book thus: “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. It has three parts, each showing Lucy and Bea [her sister] at different points in their lives, but doesn’t provide dates. Some characters appear in all three sections, but others simply vanish; unusual in a novel, yet close to the way life really is. Similarly, the decision not to name either parent in the book – they are always “mother” or “father” – seems both a refusal to identify them and a refusal to fictionalise.” (https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...) The chapters often feel more akin to short stories — interlinked, but ultimately discrete units.
The book opens in the 1970s, the narrator’s mother has a new son from another failed relationship, and the family is on a ferry to Ireland where the mother’s family lives. They have nowhere to live – a constant kind of refrain in their lives. The family lacks stability and is therefore quite vulnerable. One reviewer notes: “Sensing opportunity, men sniff about the sisters: they are girls without boundaries, grateful for any attention. This is a pre-#MeToo, pre-internet, pre-smartphone world. Messages are left on answering machines. Letters are left with pub barmen. Children are left with strangers. “I love your mother,” says one of Lucy’s friends later. “Remember how she never minded what we did?”” (https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...) The writer is very non-judgemental about her upbringings – what she cares about is mitigating conflict in the family, especially between her sister and mother. She also says: “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.”
I really loved this book – there is an absolute truth about the people and the relationships in it. I agree with this reviewer: “Despite the darkness of much of its subject matter, My Sister and Other Lovers is a spirited and funny book. Lucy is a wry observer of her surroundings and of other people – Freud has a particular skill in capturing the voices and dialogue of the charismatic and eccentric characters with whom Lucy falls in – and many of her youthful escapades in particular are madcap and relayed with real joy.” (https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/c...) I also really liked the way the book unfolds, in that it is a series of episodes, sometimes with year in between, with the impact of a kind of floating porous set of memories. One of the ideas that the book is exploring is the unreliability of any one perspective – that individuals remember family events quite differently – and the style of the book really accentuates this theme.
May 7, 2025
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.
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.
August 12, 2025
Picking up from Hideous Kinky (1992) this slight and touching collection of semi-autobiographical vignettes takes Lucy through adolescence, teenage years, and early adulthood.
In Hideous Kinky, a young mother, Julia, leads a hippie-ish life with her two daughters, Bea and Lucy traveling through Morocco and Spain. You don’t need to have read the earlier novel as its reverberations are traced back to the source in this one.
When we first reconnect with the trio in rural Sussex, Lucy is 14 and 16 year old Bea can’t wait to leave home and live in London. Julia now has a third child, Max, with a different man but poor Max doesn’t get much attention either from his family or this novel. Julia has left Max’s father and the family floats from home to home.
In the second section, Lucy has left home and is at drama school, while Bea has drifted into addiction and a succession of lovers. Finally, Lucy, now a successful textile designer, is married and has a child, and Bea has written a movie based on their childhood experiences.
Each chapter is a splinter of Lucy’s life, starting in the middle of something, giving the reader an unsettling dislocated experience before clarity fills in. They cover parenting, family, dependence and independence, and as some characters flit in, fill a role, and never reappear, others disappear and then come back, just as they do in real life.
What does “semi-autobiographical” mean? Probably like you, I have family stories that we argue about - no, that was in France not Wales and so on. The author explores how if family members remember incidents so differently, what is “true”? Their mother is deeply confused and wounded by Bea’s statement in a press interview that she never felt “safe” as a child. Lucy's recollections are shattered by Bea’s memories. Apparently Esther Freud's sister, Bella, is now writing her own reminiscences which often collide with Esther’s, but each woman has their own truths.
Recommended if you like reading about arty upper class Bohemians who live outside the sort of conventional lives most of us have.
Thanks to Ecco and Netgalley for the digital review copy.
In Hideous Kinky, a young mother, Julia, leads a hippie-ish life with her two daughters, Bea and Lucy traveling through Morocco and Spain. You don’t need to have read the earlier novel as its reverberations are traced back to the source in this one.
When we first reconnect with the trio in rural Sussex, Lucy is 14 and 16 year old Bea can’t wait to leave home and live in London. Julia now has a third child, Max, with a different man but poor Max doesn’t get much attention either from his family or this novel. Julia has left Max’s father and the family floats from home to home.
In the second section, Lucy has left home and is at drama school, while Bea has drifted into addiction and a succession of lovers. Finally, Lucy, now a successful textile designer, is married and has a child, and Bea has written a movie based on their childhood experiences.
Each chapter is a splinter of Lucy’s life, starting in the middle of something, giving the reader an unsettling dislocated experience before clarity fills in. They cover parenting, family, dependence and independence, and as some characters flit in, fill a role, and never reappear, others disappear and then come back, just as they do in real life.
What does “semi-autobiographical” mean? Probably like you, I have family stories that we argue about - no, that was in France not Wales and so on. The author explores how if family members remember incidents so differently, what is “true”? Their mother is deeply confused and wounded by Bea’s statement in a press interview that she never felt “safe” as a child. Lucy's recollections are shattered by Bea’s memories. Apparently Esther Freud's sister, Bella, is now writing her own reminiscences which often collide with Esther’s, but each woman has their own truths.
Recommended if you like reading about arty upper class Bohemians who live outside the sort of conventional lives most of us have.
Thanks to Ecco and Netgalley for the digital review copy.
August 10, 2025
I reread Hideous Kinky before diving straight into this, so my head was full of the fizzy magic of being five years old in Morocco, when everything is an adventure and the worst that could possibly happen is your mother becoming a Sufi. (The embarrassment!)
This, by contrast, was relentlessly depressing. Dozens of new characters are thrown into the mix, none of whom are explored in any depth, and it was impossible to care about any of them or anything that happened. Each chapter felt disjointed and lacking context. I kept reading, hoping that the story would pull together, that there'd be some kind of cohesive narrative or that the overarching theme of sisterly love that the blurb promised would materialise. It never did. Bea barely featured -- she's always avoiding calls, not replying to texts, etc. Characters ask how she is or where she is and we rarely get an answer, and when we do it's just a vague "she's in Florence" or "she's writing a screenplay".
And speaking of Bea, I'm absolutely gutted by what the author put her through. She was such a strong-willed, fierce little girl in Hideous Kinky, and to see her struggling was absolutely devastating.
I was so eager to see how Bea and Lucy had grown up and to spend more time in their world, but I came away from this book wishing I'd never read it.
This, by contrast, was relentlessly depressing. Dozens of new characters are thrown into the mix, none of whom are explored in any depth, and it was impossible to care about any of them or anything that happened. Each chapter felt disjointed and lacking context. I kept reading, hoping that the story would pull together, that there'd be some kind of cohesive narrative or that the overarching theme of sisterly love that the blurb promised would materialise. It never did. Bea barely featured -- she's always avoiding calls, not replying to texts, etc. Characters ask how she is or where she is and we rarely get an answer, and when we do it's just a vague "she's in Florence" or "she's writing a screenplay".
And speaking of Bea, I'm absolutely gutted by what the author put her through. She was such a strong-willed, fierce little girl in Hideous Kinky, and to see her struggling was absolutely devastating.
I was so eager to see how Bea and Lucy had grown up and to spend more time in their world, but I came away from this book wishing I'd never read it.
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