A swanky new gym has opened in leafy south-west London. Four women bond over push ups and Pilates and become firm friends. Percy likes sorting out other people's problems, but her own life is a shambles, with a terrible secret addiction. Can she kick it and win back the love of her husband? Patrice, wealthy but damaged, wants another baby, but husband Jonty isn't interested in sex. Is it her imagination, or is he getting too close to the husband of one of her new friends? Carmen is living dangerously, determined to get pregnant by her cold, treacherous boyfriend. She doesn't see what is under her nose until it's nearly too late. Suzanne adores her sexy second husband, but is she neglecting him for her job? And has she realised what is happening to her teenage daughter? New best friends. Their friendship is about to be tested to the limit.

I really loved this book, I couldn't put it down. I defy anyone not to identify with something in each of the characters and situations. There are bits of everyone's marriage in there, the struggle to lose weight and get fit, the problem of trying to balance work with raising kids, the importance of girlfriends. I was up till 2 a.m. some nights reading it and felt quite bereft when I'd finished. It made me look at my own life, too. I took away so much from it -- Fiona Phillips, writer and TV presenter Smart, funny and poignant gym-lit ... Four highly believable women Mirror Friendship is tested to the limit in this impressive, emotional debut Closer

Emma Burstall is a freelance writer who works mainly for the Guardian, Independent on Sunday and women's magazines, including Woman and Home and Woman. Educated at St Paul's Girls' School and Cambridge University, where she read English, Emma lives in south-west London with her husband, Kevin Maguire, the award-winning political columnist and broadcaster and associate editor of the Daily Mirror. They have three children.