I really liked Edna O’Brien’s The Country Girls so when I saw a copy of Girls In Their Married Bliss for £1 in a local charity shop, I snapped it up even though it had the worst cover you could possibly imagine.

This is the second and final sequel to The Country Girls which means I’ve skipped over the middle book, The Lonely Girl. I’ll have to rectify that.

Once again the narrative centres on frenemies Kate and Baba but things are different this time around. For a start, we get the first-person perspective of both women this time. And the setting has moved to London, which probably explains the much darker tone of this book.

Things are grim. That grimness is described perfectly in O’Brien’s writing. The boredom and sordidness of this life is detailed as precisely as the city and its cold damp weather.

It’s a short book, which is probably just as well. I’m not sure I’d want to spend much more time in this milieu. But there’s no denying that it’s the work of a great writer giving a voice to people who’s story doesn’t often get told.