The Guest List

by Lucy Foley

Femi’s a surgeon, Angus works for his dad’s development firm, Duncan’s a venture capitalist – whatever that means – and Pete’s in advertising, which probably

always coming home from school with playground scrapes, and bruises from bumping into things. She’s a nail-biter, a hair-splitter, an over-thinker. She’s ‘fragile’. But she’s also spoiled. And

Just because the rest of us don’t wear our hearts on our sleeves, just because we have found a way of managing our feelings – it doesn’t mean they’re not there.

must be bigger than this. I have forged my own path. I have built it all on my own, something stable and powerful. And this weekend is a statement of that. My victory march.

‘Charlie!’ Jules is coming forward now, reaching out her arms. ‘It’s

back. It would be out there in the world: what I’ve done.

Nowhere on earth could possibly live up to those halcyon days. But that’s nostalgia for you, the tyranny of those memories of childhood that feel so golden, so perfect.

fortia et patere! Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo!’

It’s animal, powerful, blood-thick. The love of kin. The closest thing I can find to it is my love for Alice, my sister.

felt strangely familiar, a sense of déjà vu.

see she’s still a child, her face round and soft, her eyes wide.