Esmé Polignac and Charlotte Cap couldn't have less in common when they arrive at Montrose, an elite Scottish university on the blustering east coast. Charlotte is a hopeless romantic with a destructive streak. Esmé, an enigmatic rich girl with a tragic past. Charlotte walks into the welcome ceremony with her eyes fixed on Esmé - adamant she is going to be her friend. Esmé looks at Charlotte with cynical intrigue. But it will turn out they both need each other more than they know.

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Set during the dying days of pre-recession indulgence, we follow Charlotte and Esmé and their group of ten through smoke-filled nights and claustrophobic classrooms, as toxic boys, broken families and destructive love-triangles threaten their enviable ecosystem.

 

As we hurtle towards their final hurrah - a graduation party on a private Scottish island - the years of rumours, secrets and lies threatens to implode them.

Broken Toys is a bitingly observant, propulsive coming-of-age story of sex, class, love and friendship; of hedonism fuelled by privilege and the mistakes we make when we're young. It is a love letter to the messy, glorious years at the end of teenagehood and the start of your 20s, where nothing and everything feels possible all at once.