Freya

"[A] double bildungsroman" of two British women "set against a background of political and cultural upheavals" in the direct aftermath of WWII (The New Yorker).
 
It begins on May 8, 1945. The streets of London are alive with VE-Day celebrations. In the crowd, twenty-year-old Freya Wyley meets eighteen-year-old Nancy Holdaway. Freya's acerbic wit and free-wheeling politics complement Nancy's gentle, cautious nature, and what begins on that eventful day in history is the story of a transformative friendship that spans two decades.
 
As Freya chooses journalism and Nancy realizes her ambitions as a novelist, their friendship takes on the nuances of sexual, emotional, and professional rivalries. Beneath the relentless thrum of changing times are the eternal battles fought by women in pursuit of independence and the search for love. Stretching from the war haunted halls of Oxford and Nuremburg to the cultural shifts of the early 1960s, Freya brings to life two extraordinary women facing down an era of political and personal tumult.
 
"With this three-dimensional portrait of his headstrong heroine, whose hard-gloss shell conceals a hard-fought vulnerability, Quinn achieves a distinct and unusual creation." --The New York Times