A heartbreaking story of friendship and betrayal - can we ever forgive the ones we love the most? 'Prep meets The Secret History meets Mean Girls - a stunning debut novel' Esther Walker, author of The Bad Mother 1996. Freya Seymour and Josephine Grey are invincible - beautiful and brilliant, the two best friends are on the cusp of Oxbridge, and the success they always dreamed they'd share. 2014. Freya gets in touch, looking for a conversation Josephine has run away from for eighteen long and tortured years. Beginning with one ill-fated night, The Exclusives charts the agonising spiral of friendship gone wrong, the heartache and betrayal of letting down those closest to you and the poisonous possibilities of what we wouldn't do when everything we prize is placed under threat. And in the end, as she realises she cannot run for ever, Josephine must answer one question: is it Freya she cannot face, or is it her own darkest secret? 'Utterly gripping' Esther Freud 'Compellingly dark, brilliantly gripping: Rebecca Thornton takes a scalpel to the heart of female friendship.' - Elizabeth Day, author of Scissors, Paper, Stone