It's been said that sex and humour are impossible bedfellows. But Lisa Standish has managed the trick of combining the two. Her novel Gap Year is funny, satirical, and very, very sexy - outrageously so, some might say. It's the tale of two young women who, as the story begins, have just left their exclusive boarding school where in their final year they were lovers as well as friends. Chloe, ambitious, dominant and totally focussed on career and wealth, gets a start in the mysterious and sinister Nastas Corporation after cruelly dropping the beautiful and happily submissive Julia who wanted nothing more than to continue living in Chloe's shadow. The traditional gap year is supposed to be the time to experience life between school and university but, told here with wit and style, as their paths diverge both young women embark on an education more life changing than any university could provide.