Beth Greenwood has spent her life playing it safe. She's been a graphic designer at the same company for a decade, she dutifully meets men from the apps for dinner and sometimes casual sex, she thinks about decorating her sterile, small apartment. Her comfort and joy are her Sunday catch-ups with her sister Elspeth, whose perfect life, very different from Beth’s, has recently started to unravel.

And then one day Beth meets a woman who invites her to join a secret club. It’s not knitting or books; it’s living out an experience you’ve always wanted to have. Cirque du Soleil acrobat, gonzo graffiti artist, performer in the BDSM underground scene: these women will get you everything you need in order to – temporarily -- be the person you might have been, had your life taken one or two different turns. At first Beth is dazzled by her new friendships, and the opportunity they offer her to test the boundaries of her identity, to escape from her quiet, ordinary life. But even the best of clubs can offer only so much distraction, and when the stakes of Beth's real life become uncomfortably high, she must ask herself, really and truly, who she's going to choose to be, and who is going to nurture her when she needs it most.

THE PLAYERS CLUB is a high-concept but grounded debut about the power of female friendship, the bonds that hold us in place, the human need for creativity and the seductive possibility of reinvention. As immersive as it is incisive, it introduces Rachel Mills as a wise and warm chronicler of the human heart.

‘Clever, brilliant and magnificent. In the absence of being able to join a Cradle, the next best thing is reading this’ CATHY RENTZENBRINK, author of Ordinary Time

'Twisty and thought-provoking…this book will make you smile, cry and wonder: who do I want to become?' TARA CONKLIN, author of The Last Romantics

‘Funny and heartbreaking and smart. I loved it’ SAM BAKER, author of The Shift