Lotti lives under the shadow of a genius: her father George Coates is a brilliant and celebrated Australian painter. When Lotti meets the outcast waif Kyla at a suburban Canberra school, two worlds are set to collide. Slowly Kyla is drawn into the orbit of the Coates family.
Or is it the other way around? As Lotti and Kyla navigate their way towards adulthood, dark secrets start to unravel, with devastating consequences We Were Never Friends is a compelling and powerful novel about friendship, the pursuit of a creative life and the legacies we leave behind.