Bosom buddies - Deborah McKinlay

Forget husbands, lovers, children, mothers: the most important relationship in a woman's life is with her best friends. Deborah McKinlay - the author of Sex Secrets and Love Lies - takes a hilarious look at female friendship.

From the playground to the divorce court, a woman's friend is there to offer her support, comfort, advice, gossip and that wonderful little black number which would be perfect for her date with the new man.

Shopping, girls' nights out, and endless, endless telephone calls ('when a woman calls another woman, she doesn't need a reason'); there are a host of female activities of which men will never truly understand the importance, where only a girl friend will do. But the female friendship is a deep and complex thing, involving all sorts of peculiar (at least to men) rituals, loyalties and taboos - especially when men enter the frame.

Deborah McKinlay's sparklingly witty insights into relationships make you laugh out loud and start with recognition at the same time. Women will love Bosom Buddies for the hilarious truths it reveals about the ways they behave with their own sex, while men will find in it a glimpse into the extraordinary and often utterly bewildering world of female fidelities.