PAGES FOR HER by Sylvia Brownrigg

(Picador £14.99) SYLVIA BROWNRIGG’S new book is a sequel to her 2001 novel Pages For You, but you don’t need to have read that to enjoy this story about Anne and Flannery, who first met when Flannery was a student.

Now, she is a 39-year-old married, heterosexual mother of one who, since the end of her brief, intense love affair with Anne, has published two books — one a successful memoir, the second a novel that sank without trace.

But a writers’ conference has given her an unexpected chance to reacquaint with Anne who, in the intervening years, has had her own big love affair with a man and established herself as a well-respected academic.

Brownrigg’s prose is a bit icky at times, particularly when describing Anne and Flannery’s reunion in a hotel room. But female friendship, platonic or sexual, is a big topic in current fiction and Brownrigg’s novel, which has lots of insightful things to say about the relationship between women’s lives and creativity, is a worthy contribution.