<I>The Exclusives</i> builds on the best concept of an oppressive boarding school environment, where students may have intense, potentially toxic friendships due to the forced proximity not present in day schools. Josephine and Freya are best friends and on the brink of great success. Both are students at the elite private school Greenwood Hall and Josephine, the daughter of the advisor to the Prime Minister, is heading for everything she has ever worked for: Head Girl, Oxford, the demons of her mother finally abated once and for all.

But something terrible happened during their last year of school, and eighteen years later, Freya has finally tracked Josephine down for a reckoning. All Josephine has wanted it to forget... but Freya isn't about to let her.

This kind of psychological novel can be made or broken by its characters, and here <I>The Exclusives</i> shines. Jo and Freya are excellent character, developed and multi-faceted, and you both love and hate them throughout the novel. The mystery of the events in their final year, which caused such emotional fallout and consequences, is easy to piece together, as the narrative flips between past and present timelines, but this isn't the point of the book. The triumph is in its characters, and the lengths they'll go to forget their past and wreck vengeance for past actions.