Women Friendship Fiction

Karissa Newcomb is ready for a new start in a new neighborhood, as far away as she can get from Seattle, where her husband cheated on her with the neighbor who was supposed to be her best friend. She and her nine-year-old daughter are moving on to the city of Gig Harbor on the bay in Puget Sound. She even has a new job as an assistant at a small publishing company right in Gig Harbor. Her new boss seems like a bit of a curmudgeon, but a job is a job, she loves to read, and the idea of possibly meeting writers sounds fabulous.

"Let's play truth or dare, for old times' sake." I reluctantly agree, silently praying none of my three oldest friends gets the chance to ask me a truth. There is so much I've been keeping from them. Just for this weekend, for our long-awaited college reunion, I want to put all that aside and have some fun. But it wasn't my secrets I should have been worried about. It was theirs.

Lauren’s life is a mess. She has a storage unit full of candles she can’t sell, a growing mountain of debt, and a teenage daughter, Dove, who barely speaks to her. Then her husband sends her a text that changes everything. Eager to escape her problems, she drives herself and Dove south to her late mother’s rundown trailer in Florida. While keeping her eccentric new neighbours at Swaying Palms at bay, Lauren begins to untangle the truth about her estranged mother.

Deira is setting out on the holiday she'd planned with her long-term partner, Gavin...only she's on her own. Gavin will not be amused when he finds out she's 'borrowed' his car, but since their brutal break-up Deira's not been acting rationally. Maybe a drive through beautiful France will help her see things differently. Grace has been sent on a journey by her late husband, Ken. She doesn't really want to be on it but she's following his instructions as always. She can only hope that the trip will help her to forgive him. And then - finally - she'll be able to let him go.

During one unforgettable year in their twenties, best friends Emma, Fern, Carolina, and Andi make a pact to embrace whatever life throws at them, inspiring Fern to write a memoir detailing their escapades and the magical power of saying Yes. But fast forward twenty years and they have reached their bandwidth of responsibilities. Fern is a full-time writer struggling to pay the bills. Carolina is a fitness-obsessed workaholic. Andi is a disillusioned human rights lawyer. And Emma is a stressed-out divorcée in the thick of planning her daughter’s wedding.

An experienced psychologist, Maggie carefully maintains emotional distance from her patients. But when she meets a young Indian woman who tried to kill herself, her professional detachment disintegrates. Cut off from her family in India, Lakshmi is desperately lonely and trapped in a loveless marriage to a domineering man who limits her world to their small restaurant and grocery store.

Alice Sullivan feels like she’s finally found her groove in middle age, but it only takes one moment for her perfectly curated life to unravel. On the same day she learns her daughter is struggling in second grade, a call from her son’s school accusing him of bullying throws Alice into a tailspin.

Everything about 15-year-old Cat's new town in rural Michigan is lonely and off-kilter until she meets her neighbor, the manic, beautiful, pill-popping Marlena. Cat, inexperienced and desperate for connection, is quickly lured into Marlena's orbit by little more than an arched eyebrow and a shake of white-blond hair. As the two girls turn the untamed landscape of their desolate small town into a kind of playground, Cat catalogues a litany of firsts - first drink, first cigarette, first kiss - while Marlena's habits harden and calcify.

When bookshop owner Sarah Smith is offered the opportunity for a job exchange with her Parisian friend, Sophie, saying yes is a no-brainer - after all, what kind of romantic would turn down six months in Paris? Sarah is sure she’s in for the experience of a lifetime - days spent surrounded by literature in a gorgeous bookshop, and the chance to watch the snow fall on the Eiffel Tower. Plus, now she can meet up with her journalist boyfriend, Ridge, when his job takes him around the globe. But her expectations cool faster than her café au lait soon after she lands.

On Ichabod Island, a jagged strip of land 13 miles off the coast of Massachusetts, 10-year-old Sky becomes an orphan for the second time after a tragic accident claims the lives of her adoptive parents. Grieving the death of his best friends, Leo’s life is turned upside down when he finds himself the guardian of young Sky. Back on the island and struggling to balance his new responsibilities and his marriage to his husband, Leo is supported by a powerful community of neighbors, many of them harboring secrets of their own.

April is a thoughtful yet sarcastic mother of two who tries her best to be a caring, connected mom in a middle-class culture where motherhood has become relentless. April rages at modern motherhood’s impossible pressures, her husband’s “Dad privilege”, and her kids’ incessant snack requests. She wants to enjoy motherhood, but her idealist vision and lived experience are in constant conflict with one another. Is she broken - or is motherhood?

When Claire Barclay receives news that her beloved stepfather has had a stroke, she's more than a little shaken. Leo is her last real relative, and his own children rarely check up on the old man. Claire and her husband, Art, leave New York and fly back to Scotland to care for him during the summer. Their visit makes clear that Leo is no longer capable of living on his own, but he is determined to stay in his beloved old house. Art comes up with the idea of turning the place into a conference center, thinking they could purchase the place from Leo and build him a cottage on the property.

At 80 years old, Florence Carter is content with her life. A widow in her twilight years, she spends her days making intricate lino prints in the company of her dog and cat, and her neighbor’s daughter Alice, a shy young woman troubled by a recent trauma. But when ​Flo learns that a long-lost friend has written a novel based on their time at finishing school, she’s forced to confront a secret from her past....

Secrets broke her heart...and have now come back from the grave to haunt her. Lorna Addams’ life is not turning out like she expected. After a very public embarrassment, she finds it difficult to trust her judgment when it comes to new friendships and dating. She might be willing to give love a second chance when she meets the attractive William Warrick, if only she could come to terms with what her husband did to her and leave it in the past. How is a humiliated empty nest widow supposed to move on with her life?

Penny can't help but compare herself to her friends. Annie is about to become a senior associate at her law firm, Bec has just got engaged, Leo is dating everyone this side of the Yarra, and Penny is just ... waiting. Waiting for Max, her on-again, off-again boyfriend, to allow her to spend the night, waiting for the promotion she was promised, waiting for her Valium to kick in. Waiting for her real life to start.

Eager for a new beginning, Emma opens a doggy day care. Unfortunately, the only space she can afford is owned by her childhood nemesis Ali Pratt. But hey, she’s been through worse, right? She tries to roll with the punches, but a friend drops his grandpa off at the doggy day care in desperation then on top of that, she and Ali bring the term ‘frenemies’ to a whole new level. And then another grandparent shows up. And another.

Forbidden, passionate and all-encompassing, Margo and Richard’s love affair was the stuff of legend—but, ultimately, doomed. When Richard walked out, Margo locked herself away, leaving her three daughters, Rachel, Imogen, and Sasha, to run wild. Years later, charismatic Margo entertains lovers and friends in her cottage on the Isle of Wight, refusing to ever speak of Richard and her painful past. But her silence is keeping each of the Garnett girls from finding true happiness.

When they posed for a photo at their high school graduation, they vowed they'd be friends forever, but teenage promises are so easily broken, and now, thirty years later, they're practically strangers. Cici—stuck in a rut, married to a cheating husband. Genie—caring for her ailing father but never getting any thanks. Kate—everyone knows people who look perfect on Instagram are not. And Laurie—the most successful of them all—now tragically gone. So, to celebrate Laurie's life, three former friends in a 1962 red Lincoln Continental convertible take the road trip of their lives.

Maggie Adair’s first year as a teacher at Downey House was a surprising success. After making the leap from an inner-city school in Glasgow, she’s learned to appreciate the mellower pace of the girls’ boarding school by the sea. Now engaged to her longtime boyfriend, sweet and steady Stan, Maggie’s just got to stop thinking about David McDonald, her colleague at the boys’ school down the road. Well, hasn’t she? Can Maggie take a leaf out of the Well Behaved Teacher’s exercise book and stick to her plan for a small but elegant wedding and settled life of matrimony?

Everyone talks about falling in love, but falling in friendship can be just as captivating. When Neela Devaki's song is covered by internet-famous artist Rukmini, the two musicians meet and a transformative friendship begins. But as Rukmini's star rises and Neela's stagnates, jealousy and self-doubt creep in. With a single tweet, their friendship implodes, one career is destroyed, and the two women find themselves at the center of an internet firestorm.