Women Friendship

When Emily meets the enigmatic and dazzling actress Tamsin, her life changes. Drawn into Tamsin's world of Soho living, boozy dinners and cocktails at impossibly expensive bars, Emily's life shifts from black-and-white to technicolour, and the two women become inseparable. Tamsin is the friend Emily has always longed for; beautiful, fun, intelligent and mysterious, and soon Emily is neglecting her previous life to bask in her glow. But when a bombshell news article about a decades-old sexual assault case breaks, Emily realises that Tamsin has been hiding a secret about her own past.

When three young women set off on a hike through the wilderness, they are anticipating the adventure of a lifetime. Over the next five days, as they face up to the challenging terrain, it soon becomes clear they are not alone, and the freedom they feel quickly turns to fear. Only when it is too late for them to turn back do they fully appreciate the danger they are in. As their friendship is tested, each girl makes an irrevocable choice, the legacy of which haunts them for years to come.

Brynne Ropert and Portland Dolish have been best friends since being paired as roommates in college. Seven years later they are now twenty-five, married, and living in Maine-but the two women couldn't be more different. Brynne finds fulfillment in her life as a wife, mother and owner of a small cafe and bookshop, but is struggling to expand her family. Portland is still coping with her mother's death during her childhood, and her marriage is unraveling before her eyes.

Melbourne, 1945. Born into a well-to-do family, Maggie Johnson wants freedom from her parents' strict conservative beliefs and their unbending desire for her to marry the right sort of man. Instead, Maggie longs to forge her own path in life. Lil Kelly, who lives in the slums, works tirelessly to care for her mother and sister. Lil looks for contentment wherever she can find it, not daring to dream of more. When their paths cross during the exhilarating celebrations of Victory in the Pacific Day, they form a secret friendship.

After making a mistake that felt like the end of the world to her teenage self, Nina Jones fled the small town of Huntingvale. Now sixteen years later her beloved adoptive mother, Bea, has passed away, forcing Nina to return and decide whether to sell her family home, Riverstone Ridge. But even though Bea can't be there to help her through it all, she's left Nina five letters, one sent a week, to finally share the secrets she'd been unable to reveal in life.

Flowers have always been the best communicators. They’ve mastered falling over one another in the perfect way to announce exactly what they need: sunlight, water, space. They do not rush. They do not bloom before their time. They do not take without giving in return…

Ada always looks forward to her summers at the family villa with her mother and grandmother in a Turkish seaside town. It’s easy to leave life in California behind when the days are filled with boat rides, games at the beach, and long swims with friends. But no matter how much Ada feels she belongs in the country where her mother grew up, deep down, her connection to the culture seems as fleeting as the seasons. It’s certainly no help that her mother has lost her own sense of self, rootless and disoriented after so many years abroad.

Gwen Maner is a widowed single mom, returning to her Ohio hometown with her daughter. And thanks to former acquaintance Nicola Kimmel, this is the start of Gwen’s new and promising life. Nicola’s secured Gwen a lucrative job, rented Gwen a house on her same street, and won the heart of Gwen’s daughter, but she almost seems too good to be true. She’s so selfless. So charismatic. And so take-charge. Gwen is sure Nicola is yearning only for someone to get close to. After all, according to Nicola, her marriage is falling apart, and her best friend just up and left one day.

Dani, Red, and Sasha have absolutely nothing in common, except the trail of tears bad boy rocker Peter left in his wake. That is, until Dani starts a blog about killing her ex and unwittingly sets the wheels in motion for the women's paths to collide. Bonding over past and present wounds, self-realizations transform the three heroines in a trifecta of twelve-step new age therapy that only LA can provide. In a city where discarded muses are a dime a dozen, All the Girls in Town explores the cost of loving the wrong person and the true power of friendship in reclaiming the self.

The older we get, the less we find ourselves spending time in the company of good friends. Organic friendship becomes nearly impossible―after all, there are all sorts of obligations tugging at our attention. Or we find ourselves getting frustrated with shallow, draining conversations. Or, most painful of all, we feel like no one wants us―and who wants to be rejected? If you have found yourself desperately wanting connection but confused about why you are not experiencing it, you are not alone. And you don’t have to stay there.

Widow Julia Turner is finally ready to date again after five years of mourning her husband. She confides to her longtime friend Angel Marino that she's signed up for an online dating site and is shocked when it's Angel that shows up at her door on the night of her first date. And the look in his eye is anything but friendly.

The residents in Brisbane's Riverview apartment block barely know each other. They have no idea of the loneliness, the lost hopes and dreams, being experienced behind their neighbours' closed doors. Vera, now widowed, is trying her hardest to create a new life for herself in an unfamiliar city environment. Unlucky-in-love Maddie has been hurt too many times by untrustworthy men yet refuses to give up on romance. Ned, a reclusive scientist, has an unusual interest in bees and worm farms. Meanwhile, the building's caretaker, Jock, has all but given up hope of achieving his secret dream.

From the moment Len came into their lives, everything changed for Millie and Elsie. Both fell in love with him, but he chose Millie because of her attractive legacy - the Jam Factory. Millie’s expecting Len’s baby, and it should be the happiest time, but her husband’s true colours have come to the fore - and Millie is forced to leave the marriage. Now Millie is desperate to save her child from Len’s clutches. Will Len ever allow her to find happiness?

Elsie’s worked her way up at Swift’s Jam Factory from the shop floor to the top, and now it’s her time to shine. But when she’s involved in an incident involving her half-sister, Millie’s, new husband, she is forced to keep it secret - the truth could threaten their sisterly bond. Dot is dogged by fear, coming to terms with her mother’s rejection of her. She should be enjoying the happiness she craves with her beloved Cess; instead, she’s trapped in an asylum, haunted by the horrifying cries of inmates.

Innocent Phoebe has only known a life of privilege. Street-smart Paula has had to make her own way in the world. When the two girls meet as teenagers, they form a deep sisterly bond, recognising in one other a yearning for love and for lives that are different from the ones into which they were born. But when they each suffer a personal trauma, they are torn apart and set out on very different paths.

Far North Queensland, 1993: at 74, former cane farmer Grace Maud is feeling her age, and her isolation, and thinks the best of life may be behind her. Elsewhere in town, high school teacher Patricia has given up on her dreams of travel and adventure and has moved back home to look after her ageing parents, while cafe owner Dorothy is struggling to accept that she may never have the baby she and her husband so desperately want. Each woman has an unspoken need: reconnection. And that's how they find themselves at Orange Blossom House, surrounded by perfumed rainforest.

Isha Patel is the black sheep of the family. She doesn’t have a “prestigious” degree or a “real” career, and her parents never fail to remind her. But that’s okay because she commiserates with her cousin, best friend, and fellow outcast, Rohan. Instead of letting her dreams fall through the cracks, Rohan convinces her to snag a pitch session with an Austinite high-profile celeb: the one and only Matthew McConaughey, who also happened to be her professor at the University of Texas years ago—he has to remember her, right?

It's 1890, and Josie Gray is an innocent and beautiful fifteen-year old when Adam McGuigan, the youngest son of a dangerous and influential crime family, spots her singing in a Sunderland public house. Adam is handsome and charismatic, sweeping Josie off her feet with his beguiling lies and promises. He charms her into marrying him on her sixteenth birthday, but on her wedding night the fairy tale ends.

Herta lives a contented life until Nazi Germany invades the Netherlands. As Jews, she and her family face persecution. Across town, Julia finds herself in the midst of upheaval when her husband becomes involved in Nazi activities. Then Herta and Julia’s husbands go missing—one to hide from the Nazis, and the other to collaborate with them. As the Jewish population faces rising tension, Herta feels compelled to find a hiding place for her daughters.

Liverpool, May 1941. An extraordinary story of three brave women, each trying in her own way to deal with the brutal tide of destruction brought on by the air raids of the Second World War. There is Ellen—whose home is destroyed by bombs; Gwen, whose family absorbs all her time and energy and Emmie, whose only fears are for the safety of her merchant seaman fiancé, far away in the South Atlantic. None of them were prepared for what would follow, when the air raid siren sounded for the first time on 1 May, 1941.