Women Friendship Fiction

England, 1835. London is awash with thrilling new ingredients, from rare spices to exotic fruits. But no one knows how to use them. When Eliza Acton is told by her publisher to write a cookery book instead of the poetry she loves, she refuses - until her bankrupt father is forced to flee the country. As a woman, Eliza has few options. Although she’s never set foot in a kitchen, she begins collecting recipes and teaching herself to cook. Much to her surprise, she discovers a talent - and a passion - for the culinary arts.

Anna McNichol knows how to take charge. Raised by a single mother, she’s worked to ensure her three children have every advantage she didn’t. And while her marriage has its problems, she values commitment and believes in "till death do us part." Now an empty nester, she’s at the peak of her career and ready to seize the opportunity to focus on her future.

Alone in the world, Tae Holmes and her mother April pretty much raised each other, but as Tae starts asking questions about the father she’s never met, April, for the first time in her life, goes silent. To make matters worse, Tae is dangerously close to broke and just manages to avoid financial meltdown when she lands a shiny new contract with an adventure company for athletes with disabilities and wounded warriors.

L’été se pointe et il est enfin temps pour Julianne, Hanaé, Serena et Agathe d’amorcer leur saison de balle-molle. Depuis quelques années, ces femmes dans la trentaine se retrouvent, un soir par semaine, pour échanger quelques confidences sur leur vie amoureuse entre deux retraits au bâton ! En ce début de saison, le président de l’association leur réserve une surprise de taille : il doit former une équipe mixte pour un tout nouveau projet pilote national…

What you see isn’t always what you get. Take Ainsley. The gorgeous mother of two lives a picture-perfect life with her husband, Ben—aspiring politician and heir to a candy fortune—in suburban Washington, DC. But in reality, Ainsley has no idea what she’s doing and is terrified someone will figure out who she really is and where she came from.

When Katy’s mother dies, she is left reeling. Carol wasn’t just Katy’s mom, but her best friend and first phone call. She had all the answers and now, when Katy needs her the most, she is gone. To make matters worse, their planned mother-daughter trip of a lifetime looms: to Positano, the magical town where Carol spent the summer right before she met Katy’s father. Katy has been waiting years for Carol to take her, and now she is faced with embarking on the adventure alone.

Beloved high school teacher Maggie Adair had been comfortably, if somewhat ambivalently, engaged to her dependable long-distance boyfriend Stan. But in the heat of summer, Maggie’s attraction to her colleague David McDonald has caught fire. Now both are facing an uncertain future as they try to figure out how to stay committed to their careers—and each other.

From the award-winning author of The One-in-a-Million Boy comes a heartfelt, uplifting novel about a chance encounter at a bookstore, exploring redemption, unlikely friendships, and the life-changing power of sharing stories.

Finley McGowan is determined that the niece she’s raising will always feel loved and wanted. Unlike how she felt after her mom left to pursue a dream of stardom, and when the grandfather who was left to raise them abandoned her and her sister, Sloane, when they needed him most. Finley reacted to her chaotic childhood by walking the straight and narrow—nose down, work hard, follow the rules.

A woman describes a series of encounters she has with various people in the ordinary course of her life: an ex she runs into by chance at a public forum, an Airbnb owner unsure how to interact with her guests, a stranger who seeks help comforting his elderly mother, a friend of her youth now hospitalized with terminal cancer. In each of these people, the woman finds a common need: the urge to talk about themselves and to have an audience to their experiences.

Cassie has sworn off men after yet another bad date though, deep down, she’s still looking for Mr. Right. A long-haired, tattooed biker is definitely not him, so there’s no harm in a few Harley rides through Sonoma. Right? Julie married her high school sweetheart too young and now wonders how her life became all about leaky faucets and checkbook balances. Maybe love isn’t enough to sustain the perfect couple.

A moving novel on the power of friendship in our darkest times, from internationally renowned writer and speaker Elif Shafak. In the pulsating moments after she has been murdered and left in a dumpster outside Istanbul, Tequila Leila enters a state of heightened awareness. Her heart has stopped beating, but her brain is still active - for 10 minutes 38 seconds. While the Turkish sun rises and her friends sleep soundly nearby, she remembers her life - and the lives of others, outcasts like her.

Maddie Townsend might live in a town called Serenity, but there's been nothing calm or peaceful about her life since her marriage broke up. This stay-at-home mom has no job skills, an out-of-control 16-year-old son, a talkative 14-year-old who's suddenly gone silent, a six-year-old daughter whose heart is broken, an ex-husband whose younger girlfriend is expecting their baby, and two best friends who think she's somehow qualified to help them open a fitness spa for women.

1992: French Canadian factions renew Quebec’s fight to gain independence, and wild, beautiful Véronique Fortin, daughter of a radical separatist convicted of kidnapping and murdering a prominent politician in 1970, has embraced her father’s cause. So it is a surprise when she falls for James Phénix, a journalist of French Canadian heritage who opposes Quebec separatism.

Meet Helen. She worries the walls are closing in. With her children grown and her selfish husband away again, she's full of regrets at not taking the exciting paths she dreamed about in her youth. So when the chance of a last-minute holiday to Cyprus with her two best friends is offered, she grabs it.

Cinnamon Haynes has fought hard for a life she never thought was possible—a good man by her side, a steady job as a career counselor at a local community college, and a cozy house in a quaint little beach town. It may not look like much, but it’s more than she ever dreamed of or what her difficult childhood promised. Her life’s mantra is to be good, quiet, grateful. Until something shifts and Cinnamon is suddenly haunted by a terrifying question: “Is this all there is?”

Nothing could be more out of character, but after fifty-nine years of marriage, as her husband Bernard’s health declines, and her friends' lives become focused on their grandchildren—which Jenny never had—Jenny decides she wants a little something for herself. So she secretly applies to be a contestant on the prime-time TV show Britain Bakes. Whisked into an unfamiliar world of cameras and timed challenges, Jenny delights in a new-found independence. But that independence, and the stress of the competition, starts to unearth memories buried decades ago.

Justine is 21 years old, and has lived with her grandparents and her cousin Jules since the death of her parents. As a nursing assistant at a retirement home, she spends much of her days listening to her residents’ stories. After bonding with Hélène, an almost 100-year-old resident, the two women slowly reveal their stories to one another. Whilst Justine helps Hélène to relive her memories of love and war, Hélène encourages Justine to confront the secrets of her own past and the loss she keeps buried deep within.

London, 1938: The bookstore just doesn’t feel the same to Gertie Bingham ever since the death of her beloved husband Harry. Bingham Books was a dream they shared together, and without Harry, Gertie wonders if it’s time to take her faithful old lab, Hemingway, and retire to the seaside. But fate has other plans for Gertie. In Germany, Hitler is on the rise, and Jewish families are making the heart-wrenching decision to send their children away from the growing turmoil. After a nudge from her dear friend Charles, Gertie decides to take in one of these refugees.

Faced with the harsh reality that there are 25,000 more women than men in London, Katie’s dating prospects are at an all-time low. While she’s glad it’s not a man’s world anymore, it wouldn’t hurt if there were more eligible bachelors. More likely to get murdered than married, according to gleeful media reports, Katie resigns herself to the fact that there’s no sex in the city for her and decides to head for the hills - or the Scottish Highlands to be exact.