Park Lane

During a summer party at the family farm in the English countryside, sixteen-year-old Laurel Nicolson has escaped to her childhood tree house and is happily dreaming of the future. She spies a stranger coming up the long road to the farm and watches as her mother speaks to him. Before the afternoon is over, Laurel will witness a shocking crime. A crime that challenges everything she knows about her family and especially her mother, Dorothy—her vivacious, loving, nearly perfect mother.

Now, fifty years later, Laurel is a successful and well-regarded actress living in London. The family is gathering at Greenacres farm for Dorothy’s ninetieth birthday. Realizing that this may be her last chance, Laurel searches for answers to the questions that still haunt her from that long-ago day, answers that can only be found in Dorothy’s past.

Can We Still Be Friends is the debut novel by Alexandra Shulman, editor of British Vogue.

It's the summer of 1983 and best friends, Salome, Annie and Kendra have left university to embark on adulthood. Three very different girls with very different paths ahead.

- Sal, the aspiring journalist whose personal demons threaten to destroy everything she has achieved.

- Annie, the capable domestic beauty, convinced that marriage will give her everything she wants.

- Kendra, the daughter of chic, liberal parents who, searching for her own identity, encounters a life she never expected.

As they navigate the decade of ra-ra skirts and shoulder pads, Duran Duran and Margaret Thatcher, they discover that the future is what happens to you, not what you plan.

Their interwoven tale captures brilliantly what it is to learn the exhilarating and painful truths about love, work, family and the ties of friendship.

'Wonderfully evokes that ping-pong between trivial and tremendous so characteristic of the Eighties . . . great on atmosphere . . . An engaging debut, alive with human sympathy' Wendy Holden, Daily Mail

'Warm and entertaining . . . captures the excitement of being young and glamorous at a time when the sky really did seem to be the limit' Kate Saunders, The Times

'Shulman has a terrific eye for the small yet telling detail' Observer Magazine

Alexandra Shulman has edited British Vogue since 1992. She is a contributor to The Times, Daily Mail, Guardian and Daily Telegraph and lives in London. Can We Still Be Friends is her first novel.

The lives of two very different couples—an officer and his aristocratic wife, and a young soldier and his childhood sweetheart—are irrevocably intertwined and forever changed in this stunning World War I epic of love and war.

At eighteen years old, working-class Riley Purefoy and “posh” Nadine Waveney have promised each other the future, but when war erupts across Europe, everything they hold to be true is thrown into question. Dispatched to the trenches, Riley forges a bond of friendship with his charismatic commanding officer, Peter Locke, as they fight for their survival. Yet it is Locke’s wife, Julia, who must cope with her husband’s transformation into a distant shadow of the man she once knew. Meanwhile, Nadine and Riley’s bonds are tested as well by a terrible injury and the imperfect rehabilitation that follows it, as both couples struggle to weather the storm of war that rages about them.

Moving among Ypres, London, and Paris, this emotionally rich and evocative novel is both a powerful exploration of the lasting effects of war on those who fight—and those who don’t—and a poignant testament to the enduring power of love.

It's 1914 and young Rose Courtenay has a decision to make. Please her wealthy parents by marrying the man of their choice - or play her part in the war effort?

The chance to escape proves irresistible and Rose becomes a nurse. Working in France, she meets Lieutenant Alex Denham, a dark figure from her past. He's the last man in the world she'd get involved with - especially now he's married.

But in wartime nothing is as it seems. Alex's marriage is a sham and Rose is the only woman he's ever wanted. As he recovers from his wounds, he sets out to win her trust. His gift of a silver locket is a far cry from the luxuries she's left behind.

What value will she put on his love?