Women Friendship

Julian Jessop, an eccentric, lonely artist and septuagenarian believes that most people aren’t really honest with each other. But what if they were? And so he writes—in a plain, green journal—the truth about his own life and leaves it in his local café. It’s run by the incredibly tidy and efficient Monica, who furtively adds her own entry and leaves the book in the wine bar across the street. Before long, the others who find the green notebook add the truths about their own deepest selves - and soon find each other In Real Life at Monica’s Café.

Spring has arrived on Christmas Key—bringing sunshine, pranks, and more surprises than the island’s ready for. April Fool’s Day is in full swing, and Mayor Holly Baxter is busy wrangling yet another group of colorful visitors: a family of redheads best known for their stint on reality TV. Between planning events, keeping the peace, and dodging pranks, Holly barely has time to think… which is probably a good thing, because change is coming fast. She and Miguel are still going strong—spending more time together than apart—and the promise of an island wedding has everyone talking ...

Hallie is having the time of her life working at the retreat. There, she meets Pete, a shy and overweight man who tugs on Hallie's heartstrings. Pete needs Hallie, which is very attractive to her. But she also has a thing for Conrad, her housemate. When she's given a choice between the two, who will she choose? Meanwhile, Fiona Kennedy, who is an acquaintance of Samantha's, and an A-List, Academy Award-winning actress, joins the group. She has everything in her life except a family. But she discovers she was adopted and her mother is Greer Davidson, who is a tarot reader and new friend of ...

When you’re broken, abandoned, and lonely, the isolated mansion of a gorgeous billionaire is the perfect escape… When I interview for the position of nanny for a billionaire’s three-month-old daughter, I’m looking for an escape. From my past, from my memories, and from those both alive and dead who refuse to give me peace. Kingfisher House is exactly what I need—a huge, quiet retreat high atop the cliffs overlooking New Zealand’s rugged coastline, straight out of a Gothic novel. It even has its own brooding hero. Ben Prince is gorgeous, stern, and withdrawn, and he’s forbidden...

Tinsel and lights and cocoa and...murder?! The islanders welcome the first big boat full of visitors to their new dock, and with them, a murder mystery weekend that involves Santa, Mrs. Claus, and an elf with legs like a Rockette. Mayor Holly Baxter is juggling her growing feelings for the island’s newest resident, a letter that arrives in the mail with news she isn’t even sure she wants, and Bonnie’s sudden interest in yet another man who threatens to draw her away from Christmas Key. Will the magic of the season be lost as the body count rises and the mystery builds? Or will the ...

Get ready for a wild ride with Rosie Brown, the sassy sixty-something determined to show the world that age is just a number. Her mission to take control of her life begins when she gets out of bed and realises that every part of her is starting to creak. All she's done is lie down for eight hours, but she has the sort of neck pain that a younger person would associate with severe whiplash from a multi-car pile-up. There are so many clicks and clacks from her creaking joints it sounds like someone’s knitting next to her as she walks. Serenaded by knitting needles when she used to be ...

Paris, 1939: Young and ambitious Odile Souchet seems to have the perfect life with her handsome police officer beau and a dream job at the American Library in Paris. When the Nazis march into the city, Odile stands to lose everything she holds dear, including her beloved library. Together with her fellow librarians, Odile joins the Resistance with the best weapons she has: books.

Our families have been enemies for thirty years. So why do I want Scarlett Stone more than the air I breathe? Scarlett and I couldn’t be more different. I’m 6’2” and big all over (so I’ve been told). She’s tiny. Like a hobbit without the hairy feet. I’m a billionaire who owns a city penthouse and buys Italian suits in Milan. She lives in a commune and wears real flowers in her hair. I’m university educated, well traveled, and experienced. Scarlett has spent her life surrounded by crackpot hippies, yet there’s an innocence about her that makes my pulse pound. Our fathers ...

She’s building rockets for NASA— but can she build the life she truly wants? At just twenty-seven, Jeanie Florence is blazing a trail few women have ever walked—as one of NASA’s brightest young engineers. While America races to put a man on the moon, Jeanie is quietly making history behind the scenes, her calculations propelling astronauts into space. But when it comes to love? She’s still stuck firmly on the launchpad. Her heart belongs to Bill Booker—an older, married astronaut whose orbit she knows she has no business entering. But emotions don’t always follow logic, and ...

Mayor Holly Baxter is juggling pirates, potholes, and the possibility of a second chance at love. Just another week on Christmas Key. The island’s newest guests? A rowdy crew of weekend pirates who’ve traded rum for espresso and are leaving a trail of mayhem (and mysterious holes) in their wake. Add to that: Her ex’s new girlfriend who’s suddenly sticking around A fresh-faced family with twin boys who’ve turned the island into their personal playground And River O’Leary—Holly’s not-quite-ex, not-quite-boyfriend—who’s texting just enough to keep her heart off-balance ...

Ava is nursing an uncomfortable crush on her stepbrother, Elijah. When Elijah invites Ava to the Hamptons to spend a month with his ailing mother and two half-sisters, Rachel and Deborah, Ava eagerly accepts. There, she finds out more about her birth father and his family, which excites Ava, who is desperate to know about her heritage. But a romance with Elijah seems forbidden to her. Will she give into her attraction?

When her partner of over a decade suddenly ends things, Laurie is left reeling - not only because they work at the same law firm and she has to see him every day. Her once perfect life is in shambles, and the thought of dating again in the age of Tinder is nothing short of horrifying. When news of her ex’s pregnant girlfriend hits the office grapevine, taking the humiliation lying down is not an option. Then, a chance encounter in a broken-down elevator with the office playboy opens up a new possibility.

It was only supposed to be a one-night stand… Over the past year, my life has fallen apart. First, my father died. Then I broke up with my boyfriend. My mother and sister have been a constant thorn in my side. And now it looks as if I’m going to have to close my bar. The last thing I need is to complicate matters by falling for a man. Especially one like Jacob Prince. Okay, he’s gorgeous, we have lots in common, and he’s a great combination of hot, gentle, and kind. But he also has a baby on the way with his ex, and I don’t need that kind of hassle in my life. Anyway, he’s only ...

Margo and B.B. are each divorced, and each is trying to reinvent her life in Colorado - while their respective teenage daughters look on with a mixture of humor and horror. But even smart women sometimes have a lot to learn - and they will, when B.B.’s ex-husband moves in next door to Margo.

A hilarious tropical romp: When stagnation threatens the future of her beloved island, mayor Holly goes head-to-head with the community’s elderly retirees. With secrets swirling, family drama brewing, and an ex-boyfriend hanging around, can Holly find a way to save her slice of paradise? With her beloved island's future on the line, Mayor Holly Baxter must choose between progress and the status quo, and she'll go up against a small army of golf cart driving retirees to do it. Throw in some major family drama, long-kept secrets, and the complication of a new romance that sparks under the ...

Gerri can't decide what's more devastating: learning her rock-solid marriage has big cracks, or the anger she feels as she tries to repair them. Always the anchor for friends and her children, she realizes it's time to look carefully at herself. The journey is more than revealing—it's transforming. Andy has come to believe that a lasting love is out of reach. When she finds herself attracted to a man without any of the qualities that usually appeal to her, she questions everything she thought she wanted in life.

Sam is seven years old and living in Beverly, Massachusetts. She adores her father, though he isn’t around much. Her mother struggles to make ends meet, and never fails to remind Sam that if she studies hard and acts responsibly, adulthood will be easier—more secure and comfortable. But comfort and security are of little interest to Sam. She doesn’t fit in at school, where the other girls have the right shade of blue jeans and don’t question the rules. She doesn’t care about jeans or rules. All she wants to climb.

1941. Audrey Coltrane has always wanted to fly. It's why she implored her father to teach her at the little airfield back home in Texas. It’s why she signed up to train military pilots in Hawaii when the war in Europe began. And it’s why she insists she is not interested in any dream-derailing romantic involvements, even with the disarming Lieutenant James Hart, who fast becomes a friend as treasured as the women with whom she flies. Then one fateful day, she gets caught in the air over Pearl Harbor just as the bombs begin to fall, and suddenly, nowhere feels safe.

Tripping the Prom Queen is an investigation of the dark secret of female friendships, the deep vein of female rivalry. Based on interviews with women across the social spectrum, Susan Shapiro Barash has exploded the myth that women are generally supportive of one another.

Our culture today is inundated with narratives about the strength of female friendship, whether through images of girl power, BFFs, or work wives. Yet cultural historian Tiffany Watt Smith has always found her own life much messier. She has had dramatic friend breakups, friendships that felt like too much or not enough, friendships that drifted into silence, and friendships built on convenience rather than a meeting of minds. And there are older cultural scripts to contend with: the competitive rival, the jealous backstabber, the underminer, the fair-weather friend.