Expectation

Description: 'Anna Hope has a way of getting inside difficult and painful moments, turning them inside out. I felt I knew these women as my own friends. Taut, electric, complex, funny' RACHEL JOYCE, author of The Unexpected Pilgrimage of Harold Fry 'Few novels leave me genuinely breathless with their brilliance. EXPECTATION is one of them' HANNAH BECKERMAN ********** Hannah, Cate and Lissa are young, vibrant and inseparable. Living on the edge of a common in East London, their shared world is ablaze with art and activism, romance and revelry - and the promise of everything to come. They are electric. They are the best of friends. Ten years on, they are not where they hoped to be. Amidst flailing careers and faltering marriages, each hungers for what the others have. And each wrestles with the same question: what does it take to lead a meaningful life? EXPECTATION is a novel of the highs and lows of friendship - how it can dip, dive and rise again. It is also about finding your way: as a mother, a daughter, a wife, a rebel. Most of all, it explores that liminal space between expectation and reality, the place - full of dreams, desires and pain - in which we all live our lives. 'SO GOOD. A 'What they did next' story of characters from a Sally Rooney novel' SARAH FRANKLIN 'An intimate and touching portrayal of female friendship that shows it's okay to just be' NINA POTTELL 'I tore through EXPECTATION at the weekend. Exceptional, gorgeously written, and reads like a love letter to London. I highly recommend it' STACEY HALLS, bestselling author of The Familiars 'Jaw-droppingly good' SARRA MANNING 'Like Normal People but about female friendship rather than a romantic relationship. It is AWESOME' ERIN KELLY

Review: "EDITOR'S CHOICE: I enjoyed this contemporary novel about the gulf between the expectation of how life will turn out and the reality... [it] taps into the current conversation about finding fulfilment and living a meaningful life." -- Alice O'Keeffe * The Bookseller * "Succulent, tender and honest, EXPECTATION is about the relationships between women: love, loss, triumph and betrayal. It was one of those books that knowingly flirted, then seduced me and then utterly ravished me" * TOR UDALL * "Jaw-droppingly good" * SARRA MANNING * "A generation-defining book, honest and relatable on motherhood, ambition and sex. Like NORMAL PEOPLE with female friendship under the microscope" * ERIN KELLY, bestselling author of HE SAID/SHE SAID * "I loved it. Raw, honest, unputdownable." * TAMMY COHEN *

Author Biography: ANNA HOPE studied at Oxford University and RADA. She is the acclaimed author of Wake and The Ballroom. Her contemporary fiction debut, Expectation, explores themes of love, lust, motherhood, and feminism, while asking the greater question of what defines a generation. She lives in Sussex with her husband and young daughter.