Available to pre-order now, the new novel from Julie Owen Moylan

Wonderful, I loved this. Julie is a writer you can ALWAYS trust in the way she portrays women, they are believable, flawed, complex and fascinating. Their motivations, loves, the way they grapple with meaning and their callings is all sensitively done and I love the way she shows the parallels between the two women' Georgina Moore

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On a cold October evening in 1956, a glittering array of stars turn out in London for a Royal Film Premier, where they will be presented to the Queen. The world knows her as Elizabeth II: an elegant young mother and wife, gracious and self-sacrificing, who has embraced her patriotic duty despite never expecting to take the throne.

Cameras flash, and a crowd surges forward as a limousine pulls up. Out steps a vision in dazzling gold; the greatest star of them all. Marilyn Monroe. A global sensation and money-making machine for Hollywood, with curves that drive men wild and a smile that lets women know she’s in on the joke.

Finally, the two most famous women in the world will come face to face in public for the first time. And the world is watching.

But behind the scenes, they are Lilibet and Norma-Jean. And they have spent the summer of 1956 as neighbours, battling secret demons that their adoring public could only guess at.

Until now…

Perfect for fans of American Wife, The Christie Affair and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, this stunning novel imagines the secret lives of two of the 20th century’s most famous women – set during a momentous summer that brought them face to face, and publishing 100 years after their births.