Bright Girls — Clare Chambers

Outstanding new voice in girls' fiction.

Fifteen-year-old Robyn (the “sensible”) one and her older sister Rachel (anything but!) arrive in Brighton to spend the summer with their estranged Aunt Jackie, who runs a ballgown hire business from her ramshackle multi-storey home. They have been forced to leave their home in Oxford, where they live with their father, because of threats to their safety, the nature of which only gradually becomes apparent.

A perfect summer read and a brilliant study of sisterly devotion and rivalry, coupled with a frisson of mystery and a wonderful dollop of humour.