Women Friendship Fiction

It is New Year's Eve when the storm of the century hits northern California. In a quiet neighborhood in San Francisco, amid the chaos of fallen trees and damaged homes, the lives of three strangers are about to collide. For Quinn Thompson, what happens in the storm's wake will bring down a barrier he has built around himself since his wife's death.

Connie Darke is trying to run away from the traumas in her past, and it's led her home, to the small rural council estate she left almost 20 years earlier. Matilda Reynolds has spent most of her long life in the Worcestershire village of Stonecastle, and she's content there, with her animals and her solitude. Until a fall lands her in hospital, and Matilda has to turn to her strange young neighbor Connie for help looking after her home. Out of their tentative arrangement, each woman gains a new sense of community.

Bestselling author and voice of Australian storytelling Tricia Stringer tackles troubled relationships, ageism, and love old and new in this warm, funny, uplifting story of colleagues and unlikely travel companions thrown together on an astonishing (and revealing) train trip across Australia.

In this “unforgettable adventure, and one you don’t want to miss” (Patti Callahan Henry, New York Times bestselling author), painter Remedios Varo and her lover, poet Benjamin Peret escape the Nazis by fleeing Paris and arriving at a safe house for artists on the Rivieria. Along with Max Ernst, Peggy Guggenheim, and others, the two anxiously wait for exit papers. As the months pass, Remedios begins to sense that the others don’t see her as a fellow artist; they have cast her in the stifling role of a surrealist ideal: the beautiful innocent.

Fair Meadows Retirement Community might as well be a country club for most of the retirees enjoying the pool, golf course, and book clubs. But for the caregivers whose family members reside upstairs in the special memory care unit, vacation is over. Comforting these forgotten folks is exactly why the Woolgatherers group has formed. The members make prayer shawls to support those affected by the heartbreaking reality of not being recognized by a loved one—people like Sam Talbot, who has been barely existing since his wife moved into Memory Care.

Georgina has been in love with Hugh since she was 18. Tall, handsome and career driven, he's everything she ever wanted - but totally out of her league. Oh, and married. Over the years, Georgina transformed herself into what she hoped Hugh would see as the ideal woman. And it paid off. At 32, she now has the career, the body and at last, the man she's always desired. But her dream come true hits shaky ground when she falls pregnant. Already-father-of-two Hugh isn't overjoyed, and as Georgina grows bigger, so does the distance between them.

Moira Wellman has always loved makeovers - helping women find their most beautiful selves. Funny how it’s taken her five years with her abusive boyfriend, Lang, to realize she needs a life makeover. When Moira finally gets the courage to leave Lang, the beachside town of Moonlight Harbor is the perfect place to start over. Soon, Moira is right at home, working at Waves Salon, making new friends, and helping her clients find new confidence. When she meets a handsome police officer, she’s more than willing to give him a free haircut. Maybe even her heart.

Christian college Professor Demitria Costanas had vowed to end her affair with a colleague. But she gives into temptation one last time...and a lurking photographer captures her weakness for all to see. Quite literally, she's the woman caught in adultery. And almost everyone - herself included - has a stone to throw. Enter Sullivan Crisp, a decidedly unorthodox psychologist with his own baggage. He's well-known for his quirky sense of humor and incorporation of "game show" theology into his counseling sessions. And yet there's something more he offers...hope for a fresh start.

Orla Cadden is a budding novelist stuck in a dead-end job, writing clickbait about movie-star hookups and influencer yoga moves. Then Orla meets Floss - a striving, wannabe A-lister - who comes up with a plan for launching them both into the high-profile lives they dream about. So what if Orla and Floss’s methods are a little shady - and sometimes people get hurt? Their legions of followers can’t be wrong.

When Jess bumps into Milan unexpectedly, sparks are reignited, and she wonders if she made a mistake finishing with him in Amberton. But matters are complicated when a film company arrives at Bentley Priory to make a morale-boosting film about the RAF. The lead actor is none other than Leonard Steele, a man from Jess’ past who could ruin everything she has worked so hard to build.

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.

Settling into the rhythms of married life with her blended family, Emily finds herself at the epicenter of a storm—juggling the intricacies of managing a distant division following a promotion, navigating the unexpected challenges of a dear friend's pregnancy, and orchestrating the delicate balance of her children's burgeoning lives.

There's always time to help out a stranger...isn't there? Supermarket delivery driver Charlie enjoys his new job, because he doesn't have to spend too long with people, who, he's found, are nothing but trouble. But when he's assigned the Hope Row street, he realises there are a lot of lonely people out there - and for some, he's their only interaction. The supermarket boss tells Charlie he's a driver, not a social worker - but Charlie can't abandon the Hope Row residents and he sets about trying to draw them out of their shells and back into the world.

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.

After inheriting her mother’s fortune-telling business as a young woman, Imelda Burova has spent her life on the Brighton pier practicing her trade. She and her trusty pack of Tarot cards have seen the lovers and the liars, the angels and the devils, the dreamers and the fools. Now, after a lifetime of keeping other people’s secrets, Madam Burova is ready to have a little piece of life for herself. But she still has one last thing to do—to fulfill a promise made in the 1970s, when she and her girlfriends were carefree, with their whole lives still before them.

Agatha has lived every day of the last seven years with her sisters: They work together, laugh together, pray together. Their world is contained within the little house they share. The four of them are devoted to Mother Roberta and to their quiet, purposeful life. But when the parish goes broke, the sisters are forced to move. They land in Woonsocket, a former mill town now dotted with wind turbines.

Helen Clapp's breakthrough work on five-dimensional space-time landed her a tenured professorship at MIT; her popular books explain physics in plain terms. Helen disdains notions of the supernatural in favor of rational thought and proven ideas. So it's perhaps especially vexing for her when, on an otherwise unremarkable Wednesday in June, she gets a phone call from a friend who has just died.

For Sera Wheeler, the Olympics is the reason for everything. It’s why she trains 30 hours a week, starves herself to under 100 pounds, and pops Advil like Tic Tacs. For her mother, Charlene, hungry for glory she never had, it’s why she rises before dawn to drive Sera to practice in a different state, and why the family scrimps, saves, and fractures. It’s why, when Sera’s best friend reports the gymnastics doctor to the authority who selects the Olympic Team, Sera denies what she knows about his treatments, thus preserving favor.

Over the course of four years, the traveling love rally called Together Live brought together diverse storytellers for epic evenings of laughter, music, and hard-won wisdom to huge audiences across the country. Well-known womxn (and the occasional man) from all walks of life shared their most vulnerable truths in a radical act of love, paving the way for healing in the face of adversity.

In the five years since Julia last visited her aunt and uncle’s home in Malibu, her life has been turned upside down by her daughter’s death. She expects to find nothing more than peace and solitude as she house-sits with only her dog, Bonnie, for company. But she finds herself drawn to the handsome man who oversees the lemon orchard. Roberto expertly tends the trees, using the money to support his extended Mexican family. What connection could these two people share? The answer comes as Roberto reveals the heartbreaking story of his own loss – a pain Julia knows all too well, but for one striking difference: Roberto’s daughter was lost but never found. And despite the odds he cannot bear to give up hope.