Women Friendship

Women crave true, vibrant friendships yet so often feel we have to resort to one-sided relationships, shallow conversations, and cliques riddled with comparison and resentment. After years of coaching women and finding community after starting over in a new city, author and podcaster Grace Valentine offers heartening truths and practical insights for finding good friends and being a good friend.

Journey to Five Island Cove for a roaring good time with friends old and new, their sons and daughters, and all their new husbands as they navigate the heartaches and celebrations of life and love. When someone returns to the Cove no one ever expected to see again, old wounds open just as they'd started to heal. This group of women will be tested again, both on land and at sea, just as they once were as teens.

It's 1924, and Peter and Patricia have what looks to be a very modern marriage. Both drink. Both smoke. Both work, Patricia as a head copywriter at a major department store. When it comes to sex with other people, both believe in "the honesty policy." Until they don't. Or, at least, until Peter doesn't—and a shell-shocked, lovesick Patricia finds herself starting out all over again, but this time around as a different kind of single woman: the ex-wife.

Tilly was a bright, outgoing little girl who liked playing with ghosts and matches. She loved fizzy drinks, swear words, fish fingers and Catholic churches, but most of all she loved living in Brighton in Queenie Malone's magnificent Paradise Hotel, with its endearing and loving family of misfits - staff and guests alike. But Tilly's childhood was shattered when her mother sent her away from the only home she'd ever loved to boarding school with little explanation and no warning. Now, Tilda has grown into an independent woman still damaged by her mother's unaccountable cruelty.

When three little girls—Anna, Bernie, and Elica—make a pact to be blood sisters for life, they believe nothing can come between them. Anna is from an affluent Jewish family, while Bernie and Elica are from poor Austrian families who barely make ends meet. As they get older, their social differences become all too real. With infectious Jew-hate-laden rhetoric from Nazi Germany spreading into Austria, it is only a matter of time before their bond of friendship gets severely tested.

When Nancy Hennessy is murdered, she leaves behind two best friends, an adoring husband and daughter, and a secret lover whose identity she took to the grave. Nancy was gorgeous, wealthy, and cherished by those who knew her - from the outside, her life was perfect. But as the investigation into her death flounders and her friends Eleanor and Mary wrestle with their grief, dark details surface that reveal how little they knew their friend, each other, and maybe even themselves.

Alice is twenty-four and falling apart. She’s lost her job, her appetite, her ability to sleep. And now she’s worried she’s going to lose Mia, her closest friend, who’s being treated for a serious illness. On the days Alice can get herself out of bed, she visits Mia at the hospital. While they sink into familiar patterns—Alice makes Mia laugh, Mia tells Alice she needs to get laid—they know their friendship is changing, and they can’t control what will happen in the days ahead.

Germaine Johnson doesn’t need a lot of friends. She has her work and her Sudoku puzzles. Until an incident at the insurance company she works for leaves her jobless, and she realizes that there are very few job openings for recently laid-off senior mathematicians with no people skills. With some luck (read: bad luck), Germaine secures a position at city hall answering calls on the Senior Citizens Helpline. But the mayor has something else in mind for Germaine: a secret project involving the troublemakers at the senior citizens’ center and their feud with the neighbouring golf club.

Meet Zara Smith: 29, single and muddling her way through life as a trainee nurse in Glasgow. With 30 fast approaching, she's determined to do whatever it takes to find love - or at least someone to sext! Cheered on by best friends Ashley and Raj, Zara embarks on a string of dating escapades that are as hilarious as they are disastrous. From online dating to blind dates, hometown hook-ups to flirty bartenders, nothing is off-limits. But when Dr Tom Adams, a.k.a. Sugar Daddy, shows interest, it's a game-changing moment.

They go through both bottles of champagne right there on the High Line, with nothing but the stars over them.... They drink, and Lavinia tells Louise about all the places they will go together when they finish their stories, when they are both great writers - to Paris and to Rome and to Trieste.... Lavinia will never go. She is going to die soon. Louise has nothing. Lavinia has everything. After a chance encounter, the two spiral into an intimate, intense, and possibly toxic friendship.

Two women’s lives are forever entwined by the love for the same child and by the agonizing choices they will both have to make. A Mother’s Choice will make listeners ask themselves what it truly means to be a parent and whether they could make an ultimately selfless decision when it comes to their child’s future.

Deira is setting out on the holiday she'd planned with her long-term partner, Gavin...only she's on her own. Gavin will not be amused when he finds out she's 'borrowed' his car, but since their brutal break-up Deira's not been acting rationally. Maybe a drive through beautiful France will help her see things differently. Grace has been sent on a journey by her late husband, Ken. She doesn't really want to be on it but she's following his instructions as always. She can only hope that the trip will help her to forgive him. And then - finally - she'll be able to let him go.

They say friends are the family we choose. And that choosing—the joy of loving and being loved by someone who isn't genetically obligated to share life with us—adds priceless worth to our days, but also great risk. Because hurt can happen even in the closest friendships, and sometimes friendships fall apart. The loss can be staggering. As we struggle to digest the pain and confusion, we wonder, How could this happen? And what do I do now? Beloved author Elizabeth Laing Thompson comes alongside listeners as they process their struggling friendships.

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.

Beth shows that women really can have it all. Ruby lives life by her own rules. And then there’s Lauren, living the dream. As perfect as it looks? Beth hasn’t had sex in a year. Ruby feels like she’s failing. Lauren’s happiness is fake news. And it just takes one shocking event to make the truth come tumbling out....

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.

One minute Tegan Lawson has everything she could hope for: an adoring husband, Gabe, and a baby on the way. The next a patch of black ice causes a devastating accident that will change her life in ways she never could have imagined. Tegan is consumed by grief - not to mention her anger toward Gabe, who was driving on the night of the crash. But just when she thinks she's hit rock bottom, Gabe reminds her of their Jar of Spontaneity, a collection of their dream destinations and experiences, and so begins an adventure of a lifetime.

Nearly thirty years ago, June Moore bought Camp Holly Springs and turned it into a thriving summer haven for girls. But now, June is in danger of losing the place she has sacrificed everything for and begins to realize how much she has used the camp to avoid facing difficulties in her life. June’s niece, Daphne, met her two best friends, Lanier and Mary Stuart, during a fateful summer at camp. They’ve all helped each other through hard times and the three are inseparable even in their thirties.

Eighteen years ago, teenage Amy fled England, pregnant and heartbroken, to start over in New Zealand with her parents. Now Chris, the love she left behind, has walked into her beloved café by the beach and thrown her life into turmoil. As far as Amy’s concerned, Chris chose to ignore the child she was carrying when they last met. She brought up their daughter alone and created a happy home for them both on the other side of the world. But with Chris suddenly back in her life, she can no longer ignore the past and begins to wonder what really happened all those years ago.

After more than a decade of dead-end dates and dysfunctional relationships, Christie Tate has reclaimed her voice and settled down. Her days of agonizing in group therapy over guys who won’t commit are over, the grueling emotional work required to attach to another person tucked neatly into the past.