'They make an odd pair, Caroline and Sugar, as they walk up the street together: the older woman small-boned, round-faced, swell-bosomed, so neat and shapely in comparison to her companion, a long, lithe creature wreathed in a peau-de-soie dress the colour of moss.

Although she has no bosom to speak of, this Sugar, and bones that poke alarmingly through the fabric of her bodice, she nevertheless moves with more poise, more feminine pride than Caroline.

Her head is held high, and she appears to be wholly at one with her clothing, as if it were her own fur and feathers.'

The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber