Broken Toys

Broken Toys is a sharp, searing campus novel; a Prep for the next generation, for those enraptured by Euphoria, with a startling and unforgettable female friendship at its heart.

Esmé Polignac and Charlotte Cap couldn't have less in common when they arrive at Montrose, an elite Scottish university on the blustering east coast. Charlotte is a hopeless romantic with a destructive streak. Esmé, an enigmatic rich girl with a tragic past. Charlotte walks into the welcome ceremony with her eyes fixed on Esmé - adamant she is going to be her friend. Esmé looks at Charlotte with cynical intrigue. But it will turn out they both need each other more than they know. Set during the dying days of pre-recession indulgence, we follow Charlotte and Esmé and their group of ten through smoke-filled nights and claustrophobic classrooms, as toxic boys, broken families and destructive love-triangles threaten their enviable ecosystem. As we hurtle towards their final hurrah - a graduation party on a private Scottish island - the years of rumours, secrets and lies threatens to implode them. Broken Toys is a bitingly observant, propulsive coming-of-age story of sex, class, love and friendship; of hedonism fuelled by privilege and the mistakes we make when we're young. It is a love letter to the messy, glorious years at the end of teenagehood and the start of your 20s, where nothing and everything feels possible all at once.