Excerpt from The Bee Sting by Paul Murray, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Elaine felt that her own mother hadn't aged well, and had once confessed her 'greatest fear' was that her looks too would be transitory, and that she would spend the rest of her life as one of the lumpen potato-people she saw shuttling their shopping trolleys through the Lidl car park.

It was true: even now, as a mother of two, Imelda had an electrifying effect on people. When she walked down the street women would cock their heads and gaze at her adoringly, as if at some dazzling athletic display. Men would stop, and stammer, their pupils dilating and their mouths quivering in half-formed O's, as if trying to push out some ineffable word.

Cass's own effect was not electrifying, and when she told people that Imelda was her mother, they would stare at her a moment as if trying to solve a puzzle, then pat her hand sympathetically, and say, It's after your father you take, so.

Elaine said it wasn't just about looks. Imelda also had mystique, magnetism.

I can't believe she married your dad, she said candidly.

Cass too sometimes had trouble believing it – that her dad, who was so thoughtful, so sensitive, had fallen for Imelda's 100 per cent superficial allure like every other chump. She didn't want to devalue her mother in Elaine's eyes. At the same time, she didn't know how Elaine could think Imelda had mystique. To spend time with her mother was to get a running commentary on the contents of her mind – an incessant barrage of thoughts and sub-thoughts and random observations, each in itself insignificant but cumulatively overwhelming. I must book you in for electrolysis for that little moustache you're getting, she'd say; and then while you were still reeling, Are those tulips or begonias? There's Marie Devlin, do you know she has no sense of style, none whatsoever. Is that man an Arab? This place is filling up with Arabs. Where's this I saw they had that nice chutney? Kay Connor told me Anne Smith's lost weight but the doctor said it was the wrong kind. I thought it was supposed to be sunny today, that's not one bit sunny. Who invented chutney, was it Gorbachev? And on, and on – listening to her was like walking through a blizzard, a storm of frenzied white nothings that left you snow-blind.

Frankly, she would have preferred that Elaine stayed away from her house altogether, that after school they only went to Elaine's, where Elaine's housekeeper, Augustina, would make them iced coffees, and they'd sit in Elaine's bedroom looking at the Miss Universe Ireland website, swapping sex tips they had never used, ranking the best-looking boys from the secondary school down the road.

At the same time, she knew she should be thankful for her mother's undeniable glamour – thankful to have something in her life that her friend envied, especially now.

The fact was that their lives were not so similar as Elaine imagined. Yes, they had the same tennis racket, the same terry hoody in peach melba. But though Elaine hadn't seemed to realize it yet, some of the other things they had in common were actually things they used to have in common. Both families had Brazilian housekeepers. But Marianna had been away 'visiting her family' for almost a year now, and Cass knew she was never coming back. Cass could say where the best shops were in New York City, and the best beaches on the Cap d'Antibes; but Elaine's arms still bore the tan-fade from her holidays, while if she looked at her own arms, which she tried not to, Cass would see that between the patches of eczema they were clammy white, almost indistinguishable from the fabric of the ugly school blouse.

When she first became aware that business was 'slowing down', as her dad had put it, she thought it might not be a bad thing. Elaine had confided recently that, before they became friends, she'd thought Cass and her family were stuck-up. Not just me, she hastened to explain. It's what most people think.

Cass had been horrified. She knew her family was well off, but she had never behaved like this made her special. Maybe it wouldn't hurt if they were brought down to earth a little; then Elaine would know she wasn't trying to act superior or compete for the limelight.

Excerpted from The Bee Sting by Victoria Christopher Murray. Copyright © 2023 by Victoria Christopher Murray. Excerpted by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.