Victoria Routledge’s exhilarating first novel, Friends Like These, is a warm and witty story about a group of Cambridge graduates. The friends, who had been inseparable at college since their Fresher’s Week meeting, arrange a weekend reunion in the Lake District. The weekend has several objectives: to celebrate the engagement and plan a wedding for Mike and Laura as well as to renew bonds with their closest friends. The weekend moves from the domesticity of Laura and Rachel trying to “out-cake” each other to the unexpected arrival of jet- setting actress, Caroline, whose sole objective seems to be to turn heads. Their friendships are indeed renewed but not until Caroline’s atrocious behaviour is exposed and the many years of bottled-up anger is vented with scintillating effect. Friends Like These is fresh and funny with tight, sparkling dialogue and quick-witted insight into the friendships of seven twenty- something graduates with very different life goals.