The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus

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As Independent Scottish booksellers, we write all of our descriptions personally, we hope you enjoy this one.

In their first year at the University of Edinburgh, childhood best friends Pen and Alice have arrived from Toronto with different hungers and different plans. The city holds its own pull, offering the chance to begin again, and to test who they might become away from home.

Pen believes her divorced parents are hiding something from her. She thinks the answer lies here, with an old friend of her father’s, now a famous writer known as Lord Lennox. Invited to spend a weekend at his centuries old estate, surrounded by his enveloping, fascinating family, Pen begins to unravel what has been kept from her, at the same time as she finds herself falling in love for the first time.

Alice, an aspiring actor, wants university to be a route to the West End and beyond. As the star of this year’s theatre production, she leans into the power of being desired, until an affair with her tutor starts to slip from her control.