Women Friendship Fiction

Born in a carnival trailer, Leah Fern begins her life as the "The Youngest and Very Best Fortuneteller in the World," taking strangers' hands and feeling the depths of their emotions. Her mother Jeannie Starr is a captivating magician, but not always an attentive mother, and when Leah is six, Jeannie upends their carnival life with an unexpected exit. With little fanfare and no explanation, she leaves her daughter at the home of Edward Murphy, a kindly older man with whom Leah shares one fierce wish: that Jeannie Starr will return to them.

When 58-year-old Helen Spencer reviews her life, what she sees are the mistakes. Over the years, things seemed to go sideways incrementally, one little wrong decision at a time. She can even pinpoint where it all started to go awry: a wonderous, romantic night in the woods her senior year of high school with a boy named Cal Crosby. A night she would soon work hard to forget. Forty years, one marriage, three children, and one grandbaby later, suddenly there he is—Cal Crosby!—right in front of her with grandchildren of his own in tow.

It is a day that starts like any other day. It’s cold outside, but the sun is shining. It feels like a day that is full of hope. But two mothers’ lives are about to come crashing down when Samantha gets a call saying her 15-year-old daughter, Keira, has been hurt and is in a coma. And then Julia’s daughter, Grace, comes home covered in blood, refusing to speak. Once, the two girls had been best friends and completely inseparable. But eventually the girls had drifted apart. Now their lives have collided again. And Julia is forced to ask herself: What could Grace be hiding?

Rose has just turned 40 when she gets a call from a lawyer asking her to come to Kyoto for the reading of her estranged father’s will. And so, for the first time in her life, she finds herself in Japan, where Paul, her father’s assistant, is waiting to greet her.As Paul guides Rose along a mysterious itinerary designed by her deceased father, her bitterness and anger are soothed by the stones and the trees in the Zen gardens they move through.

Tom is a teenager and blends into the background of life. After a row with his dad and facing an unhappy future at the dog food factory, he escapes to the library. Tom unwittingly ends up with a bagful of romance novels and comes under the suspicion of Maggie. Maggie is a pensioner and has been happily alone for 10 years, at least that's what she tells herself. When Tom comes to her rescue, a friendship develops that could change her life.

Antique-store owner Cricket Crosby’s life is turned upside down when she discovers that the rumors of her husband’s affair aren’t just leisurely Southern gossip. Her plan: hire an investigator; find an attorney; enlist the help of her new assistant, Ruby; and make her husband pay.

Food of Love tells the story of Regina, a former supermodel, now princess of a tiny European principality, who has lost her skeletal figure and finds herself threatened by an unknown assassin. Fearing her royal husband wants to kill her now that she’s not model-thin, she seeks protection from her estranged African-American foster sister, conservative Christian television pundit, Rev. Cady Stanton.

Josh Braden has models at his beck and call, a staff that never says never, and an elegant clothing line for the holiday season. When he hires Riley Banks, he expects her to learn the business from the ground up. But the girl next door turns out to be much more than he remembered. Josh and Riley's friendship heats up. Every steamy kiss and every erotic caress stirs a love they cannot deny.

In a village on Naxos lies a gorgeous guest house and taverna that never opened. Cressida’s husband died suddenly three years ago—the taverna was their dream—but she’s been too lost in grief to keep that dream alive. Marjory "Jory" St. James, a young traveler who always feels more at home on the move, arrives on Naxos in the middle of the night as if summoned by the island. She quite unexpectedly becomes Cressida’s very first guest. Jory quickly discovers that this island vacation is more than just a sightseeing adventure as all of the women in town are more than what they seem.

Roxanna Elden’s “laugh-out-loud funny satire” (Forbes) is a brilliantly entertaining and moving look at our education system. Each new school year brings familiar challenges to Brae Hill Valley, a struggling high school in one the biggest cities in Texas. But the teachers also face plenty of personal challenges and this year, they may finally spill over into the classroom. Recording it all is idealistic second-year history teacher Kaytee Mahoney, whose anonymous blog gains new readers by the day as it drifts ever further from her in-class reality.

After nine years of dating, Holly is sure her boyfriend Will is going to propose. But instead of popping the question, he shocks her by suggesting they open their relationship to date other people. For the last three years, Fliss and her boyfriend Ash have been in a happily open relationship. But now that they’re turning 30, he wants to close it, throwing Fliss’s whole ethos of living life on her terms rather than society’s expectations into question. When Fliss overhears Holly crying in the toilets during her first date in nine years, they decide to ditch their dates and have dinner together.

Klara—who’s always thought of herself as a little different, a sneaker in a world full of kitten heels and polished boots—is feeling a disconnect these days. She has type 1 diabetes, currently works in a dead-end job, and is in desperate need of a change. When her dad falls ill, Klara begrudgingly agrees to help run his small construction company while he recovers, even though it means moving back home and pushing the boundaries of her comfort zone to the extreme.

Lifelong friends Joanna, Debbie, and Gwen grew up on Bribie Island together in the quaint little hamlet of Sunshine. Now that they're on the cusp of retirement, they hold a regular potluck brunch to catch up.

Seventeen-year-old Virginia makes bad choices. In fact, she’s That Kind of Girl, according to the whispers. But as long as she has her tight group of best friends by her side, she’s able to ignore the gossipers. Until she finds herself spending time with Rumi, Poppy’s boyfriend. Breaking with tradition, she doesn’t hook up with Rumi. Worse, she falls in love with him.

Claire Sommers grew up as a society girl destined to have it all: tasteful Dallas mansion, high-powered career, hot and rich husband. Until a massive mistake left her reputation in tatters and trust fund frozen. Now the former debutante is scraping by as a magazine staffer in Nashville—trading in her diamonds and designer stilettos for rhinestones and cowgirl boots. But all is not well in the world of print publications.

When Daisy Cooper’s new husband joins the RAF to fight the Battle of Britain, she’s terrified she’s going to lose him. So when her mother Ivy suggests she join the gardeners at Kew to keep busy, Daisy’s intrigued. After all, Ivy worked at Kew during the last great war and made friends along the way. Louisa Armitage, not ready to hang up her gardening gloves just yet, and Beth Sanderson, an aspiring doctor looking to make a difference, decide to enlist as well. When tragedy strikes, the women are forced to come together to support one other during their darkest hours.

A year ago, Lydia became a widow at 38 when she lost her beloved husband to cancer, and despite the support of her friends and her teenage daughter Holly, she’s had a hard time moving on from the loss. She feels stuck, uncertain of how to carry out her husband’s final wish that she do something that scares her. Angela Collins has what seems like the perfect life - a beautiful little boy, a loving husband, and a good career. But that all comes crumbling down.

Trina is starting over after a painful separation from her husband of almost 20 years. Grief and loss force her to return to her hometown, where she has to deal with all of the things she left behind to rebuild her life, piece by piece. A hometown she hasn't visited since she left at the age of 18. When the handsome police officer who lives next door comes knocking with questions about a tragedy from her teenage years, Trina finds herself wondering if everything she thought she knew about the past is a lie.

Bess has long been sure of two things - that her group of college friends would stay close, and that love is worth the wait. At 42, she's found the right man, and she's celebrating her upcoming wedding by inviting her best friends to beautiful Kennebunkport. Bess has always been at the helm of these reunions, herding everyone together. As usual, Marta and Mike journey from their home near New York City, while Chuck and his husband, Dean, travel from Los Angeles. But Allison, half of a devoted couple since college, is making the trip from Chicago without her husband, Chris.

Sophie Mills has worked her Manolo Blahniks off to reach the near-top of her profession. And she's very happy with her priorities in life - her job, her neurotic cat Artemis and her passion for shoes. After all, relationships only get in the way. And as for children? She hasn't even begun to think about them yet.