The actresses - Barbara Ewing

They all met again at the Drama School Reunion: the Hollywood celebrity, the out-of-work soap star, the understudy, the Shakespearian hero.

Thirty-six years ago, they dreamed of the great parts awaiting them. What they did not know was that the parts would soon dry up, for the actresses. Because they had stopped being young.

But: once an actress, always an actress and on this hot, summer's day it becomes clear that age does not wipe out ambition. Or desire. Or memory. Or love. So when the Reunion culminates in an accusation of rape that dominates every newspaper in the country, the past - sweet, cruel, tragic - comes flooding back, and the actresses become the stars of the story.

Perceptive, shocking, gripping and wise, this could only have been written by somebody who has been there.