The Nocturnals

From the bestselling author of The Best Kind of Beautiful, Frances Whiting, comes an endearing, wise and witty novel of love and friendship, which asks, how far would you go, to protect your friends?

In the summer of 1997, five high school students meet. Nina, the Good Girl. Beatrice, The Poetess. Harriet, the Ghost. Cosmo, the Professor. And Hunter, the Golden Boy. In their last year of school, they become inseparable, five sides of the same star, until a fault line cracks between them, scattering them to all corners of the globe.

Now, fifteen years later, Hunter has called them with his conch shell lips to return to the place where they lived and laughed and cried together, before secrets were whispered, and promises were broken. No-one knows why he has assembled them, but there is no question they will go. Because to outsiders, they might be, in turns, a little bit weird, a little bit glamorous, and a little bit dangerous. But to each other, they are, and always will be, The Nocturnals.

From bestselling author Frances Whiting comes an irresistible, witty, darkly delightful and utterly endearing novel of friendship - and the lengths we will go to protect those who we love.

The Nocturnals is witty, luminous and frankly, irresistible. Think The Breakfast Club meets The Great Gatsby - clever, funny, and impossible to put down. I'm calling it as one of the best reads of 2026." - Rebecca Sparrow, Birds of a Feather Book Club