Women Friendship Fiction

Hockey player Gabriella "Gabi" Welk spent her life in pursuit of championships, but she has little to show for it besides dusty trophies and second-place medals. Now her career consists of several part-time jobs to make ends meet. When Gabi gets a chance at her dream job, she swallows her pride and asks her nemesis - smart, sexy and savvy Nolan Lund - for help. Since being named future CEO of Lund Industries, Nolan has tried hard to overcome his reputation as a fun-loving playboy and ladies' man. For the first time ever, he's more focused on the company than his personal life.

Welcome to the World, Baby Girl! is the funny, serious, and compelling new novel by Fannie Flagg, author of the beloved Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe (and prize-winning co-writer of the classic movie). Once again, Flagg's humor and respect and affection for her characters shine forth. Many inhabit small-town or suburban America. But this time, her heroine is urban: a brainy, beautiful, and ambitious rising star of 1970s television. Dena Nordstrom, pride of the network, is a woman whose future is full of promise, her present rich with complications, and her past marked by mystery.

Olivia Strauss is turning thirty-nine. No major milestone. She still considers herself young. At least young enough to assume she has decades (emphasis on the plural) to check the unchecked boxes of her life’s to-do list. Ballerina? Too late. But not too late for poet. Or for reigniting the romantic spark in her marriage, spending more quality time with her son, switching careers, learning to cook, or even dyeing her hair a bright bohemian pink. She’ll get to that one. There’s time—until Olivia’s best friend, Marian, gives her a birthday present she could have lived without.

Five former sorority sisters, all in their 50's, undertake the adventure of a lifetime when a mysterious invite reunites them at an exclusive resort set on a private island.

Penny Rush has problems. Her marriage is over; she’s quit her job. Her mother and stepfather went missing in the Australian outback five years ago; her mentally unbalanced father provokes her; her grandmother Dr. Pincer keeps experiments in the refrigerator and something worse in the woodshed. But Penny is a virtuoso at what’s possible when all else fails. Elizabeth McKenzie, the National Book Award–nominated author of The Portable Veblen, follows Penny on her quest for a fresh start.

Making the startling discovery that her family finances are in dire straits is only the latest shock endured by Carley Winsted after her husband’s sudden death from a heart attack. Resisting her in-laws’ well-meaning overtures to take in Carley and her two daughters, the young widow instead devises a plan to keep her family in their beloved home, a grand historic house on the island of Nantucket.

Grieving but feisty widow Vivian Laurent is at a late-in-life crossroads. The man she loved is gone. Their only daughter is estranged and missing. And the assisted-living facility where her husband died is going into quarantine. Living in lockdown with only heartache and memories is something Vivian can’t bear. Then comes a saving grace.

Five former sorority sisters, all in their 50s, undertake the adventure of a lifetime when a mysterious invite reunites them at an exclusive resort set on a private island. And what adventures they've had so far at Mother's! With a new section of the resort open and operating, numerous new guests, and two weddings about to take place, the women have their hands full. Can they juggle everything that's going on in their lives and business and still produce two amazing weddings?

As an adult, National Public Radio foreign correspondent Jacki Lyden has spent her life on the front lines of some of the world's most dangerous war zones. As a child, she lived in a war zone of a different kind. Her mother, Dolores, suffered from what is now called manic depression. In her manic phases, Dolores became Marie Antoinette or the Queen of Sheba, exotically delusional, yet to young Jacki also transcendent, even inspiring. In time, Jacki grew to accept, even relish, Dolores' bizarre episodes, marveling at her mother's creative energy and using it to fuel her own.

When Sonny Dunes, a SoCal meteorologist whose job is all sunshine and 72-degree days, is replaced by a virtual meteorologist that will never age, gain weight or renegotiate its contract, the only station willing to give the 50-year-old another shot is the very place Sonny’s been avoiding since the day she left for college — her northern Michigan hometown.

As single mother Leah struggles to get her children ready one morning, the doorbell rings. Standing on the doorstep of their terraced house in Whitley Bay is a well-dressed stranger, Clio, who feels an emotional tie to the house that she can’t explain.

Alice Pendelbury believes everything in her life is pretty much in order - from her good friends to her burgeoning career. But even Alice has to admit it’s been an odd week. Not only has her belligerent neighbor, Mr. Daldry, suddenly become a surprisingly agreeable confidant, but he’s encouraging her to take seriously the fortune-teller who told her that only by traveling to Turkey can Alice meet the most important person in her life. What’s more, the peculiarly insistent Mr. Daldry has even agreed to finance Alice’s trip - one that against all reason seems to be predestined.

Raised in East Hampton, Caroline never thought she’d be one of the “city people” who spent summers and weekends at the beach. But, once her husband’s business takes off, a job stint transplants the couple permanently into Manhattan life - where the phrase when you marry for money, you work for it every day reflects her neighbors’ lives. And where entitled husbands, like hers, embark on affair after affair with little consequence. Time for the wives to get even.

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.

When Keira first receives her breast cancer diagnosis, she never expects to end up joining a running group with three women she’s only just met. Totally blindsided, all she can think about is how she doesn’t want to tell her family or step back from work. Nor does she want to be part of a group of fellow cancer patients. Cancer is not her club. And yet it’s running - hot, sweaty, Lycra-clad running in the company of brilliant, funny women all going through treatment - that unexpectedly gives Keira the hope she so urgently needs.

Set over the course of one rainy day in an ordinary English suburb, Arlington Park is a viciously funny portrait of a group of young mothers, each bound to their families, each straining for some kind of independence: Juliet, enraged at the victory of men over women in family life; Amanda, warding off thoughts of death with obsessive housework; Solly, about to give birth to her fourth child; Maisie, struggling to accept provincial life; and Christine, the optimist and host of a dinner party where the neighbors come together.

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.

Money and fame: in 1970s Los Angeles, everyone is fighting to reach the top, but very few have the talent, ambition, and luck to get there. Meet LA darling Evra Scott. The daughter of an Oscar-winning director and a Brazilian bombshell actress, Evra is the city’s reigning style queen. By day, she’s at the helm of Sunset on Sunset, the store beloved by Hollywood’s young and beautiful. By night, she’s on the arm of Kai de la Faire, Hawaii’s hottest export, and the screenwriter of the moment.

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.

Hannah, Compton, and Kira have been close friends since medical school, reuniting once a year for a much-needed vacation. Just as they gather to travel in Spain, an outbreak of a fast-spreading virus throws the world into chaos.