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This novel begins on VE Day, when Freya Wyley goes to meet some old schoolfriends and ends up celebrating with Nancy Holdaway, who had just tagged along with the group. I have not read the author’s previous novel, “Curtain Call,�� but this apparently has some characters from that book. However, it certainly read perfectly well as a stand-alone story; although I enjoyed it so much that I am now keen to go back and read the previous book.

Nancy is due to go to Oxford, while Freya had her place deferred by war. Indeed, after the war, the thought of studying seems absurd to Freya, but, upset at her parents disintegrating marriage and her father’s new relationship with another woman, she finds herself heading there, where she meets up again with Nancy. This book is very much a story of their friendship and relationship through the years; from the time after the war up until the Sixties.

The two women are very different. Freya is outspoken and loves to swear and shock. She is openly ambitious about becoming a journalist even while young �� pursuing her heroine, the correspondent Jessica Vane, to the Nuremberg trials to try to get an interview. Nancy is quieter and keen to be a writer. However, although she is a much more gentle soul, she sometimes surprises Freya with her determination and makes Freya unsettled by showing her how her brash behaviour is sometimes viewed.

Much of the joy in this novel is in the changing society in which the two women live. In Oxford they meet two men whose storyline is also followed. Firstly, Robert Cosway, a fellow student whose life intersects with both women at different points of the book. The second is the flamboyant Nat Fane �� a playwright, producer and dandy. Fane is an aspiring theatre actor and it is interesting to see, as the book progresses how, gradually, the fame of the stage becomes replaced with the glamour of television.

I very much enjoyed reading about the ambitious, driven Freya, the hopeful, forgiving Nancy and the characters surrounding them. This is a novel which embraces changing times �� especially for women �� and the author looks at really difficult issues with an ease which belies the skill of his writing. Essentially though, despite all the historical issues, this is a novel about friendship, trust and ambition. Lastly, I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.