A Summer Bird-cage / Margaret Drabble

'My sister, I should say, is an absolutely knock-out beauty. She really is. People are silent when she enters rooms, they stare at her on buses, they look round as she walks down the street.' Two sisters: Louise, achingly beautiful, sophisticated and elegantly nonchalant, and Sarah, attractive, witty and intelligent, (but not quite enough to compete), who has always felt left behind. Then Louise marries the wealthy but unattractive novelist Stephen Halifax, and Sarah, newly graduated from Oxford, is thrown back into family affairs. As Louise enters a high-profile world of glamour, parties and gossip columns, Sarah, drifting in London with her degree and new-found freedom, is only allowed glimpses into this new alien life. However, as the cracks begin to show in Louise's marriage and rumours of infidelity spread, Sarah discovers that, beneath her cool exterior, her sister is not quite the person she thought she was ...