What is the secret to true friendship? Is it really love's quieter relation or something stronger and more profound? And where does the line between the two lie? Rose Tremain looks at two unlikely lifelong friendships, which - though tested - prove unbreakable. Thought-provoking and life-affirming, this is at once an examination and a celebration of friendship in all its glorious complexity.

Selected from the books Restoration and The Gustav Sonata by Rose Tremain

VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS.

A series of short books by the world's greatest writers on the experiences that make us human

Also in the Vintage Minis series:
Love by Jeanette Winterson
Language by Xiaolu Guo
Desire by Haruki Murakami
Freedom by Margaret Atwood

Rose Tremain's novels and short stories have been published in thirty countries and have won many awards, including the Orange Prize (The Road Home), the Dylan Thomas Award (The Colonel's Daughter and Other Stories), the Whitbread Novel of the Year (Music & Silence) the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Prix Femina in France (Sacred Country) and the South Bank Sky Arts Award (The Gustav Sonata). Her most recent novel is Lily, a Richard and Judy Book Club selection. Rose Tremain was made a CBE in 2007 and a Dame in 2020. She lives in Norfolk and London with the biographer, Richard Holmes.