Royals: The Autumn Radio 2 Book Club Pick

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The Autumn Radio 2 Book Club Pick A Grazia Book of the Year 'Honest, provocative and disarmingly funny' Guardian 'Charming, witty and touching, an Eighties Breakfast at Tiffany's' DAVID NICHOLLS 'Dazzling ... I'm incoherent with love for it' MARIAN KEYES 'Elegant, sexy, tender, wild ... A beautiful, beautiful book' EMMA JANE UNSWORTH, author of ANIMALS July, 1981. London. Shy, working-class Steven finds solace in beauty. Eighteen years old, he dreams of being a fashion designer. He's also gay, maybe - he hasn't decided yet. There's a lot Steven isn't sure about, like whether he hates himself or thinks he's amazing. When he ends up in hospital after being brutally attacked by his father, he meets Jasmine, an heiress. Intoxicating, anarchic, fabulous Jasmine. Fuelled by their shared love of fashion, a friendship blossoms and soon, Steven finds himself swept into her hedonistic world, wholly beguiled. However, underneath the glitter and the frivolity, darkness lies. Devastating, dazzling, queer and radical, Royals is a love story between unlikely friends from completely different worlds. It's about the power of art to transform lives and the power of families to destroy them. It's about working out who you are and what you want. It's a tale of giddy happiness, crushing lows and, ultimately, the fragility of lives lived too fast.

Emma Forrest has published three novels, an essay collection and the memoir Your Voice In My Head. An Anglo-American currently based in London, she recently wrote and directed her feature debut, Untogether. @GirlInterrupter

Both a beautifully observed coming-of-age tale and a lovely examination of the addictive joy of friendship * i * Emma Forrest writes books that feel like beautiful bruises, the sort of wounds that you shouldn't press hard on but do anyway because the pain feels so horrible good. Royals is her best ... A clever, moving portrait of teenage friendship and so well handled that the novel's climax lands like a punch to the gut * i news * Charming, witty and touching, an Eighties Breakfast at Tiffany's -- DAVID NICHOLLS Honest, provocative and disarmingly funny * Guardian * A grand romance ... Valuably disrupts conventional notions of love * Mail on Sunday * A joy to read. For me, the greatest love stories offer as many relatable moments as they do escapist fantasies. And in that respect, Royals is just right * Stylist * The coolest book you'll read this year * Red * Glamorous, moving, tragic, dazzling ... I'm incoherent with love for it ... Such a gifted writer, such an utter pleasure to read -- MARIAN KEYES Elegant, sexy, tender, wild ... A beautiful, beautiful book ...The deepest, saddest, funniest, most surprising friendship story I've read in a long time, unlike any I've ever read before ... It made me reel and rejoice. I loved them so much -- EMMA JANE UNSWORTH, author of ANIMALS Glitzy ... The jauntily comic tone here softens what ultimately proves to be a sad story of lost illusions -- Anthony Cummins * Daily Mail * This glamorous but wise coming-of-age story set in 1980s London is as cool as it is sincerely romantic about friendship * Grazia * A dizzying coming of age * Herald *