Women Friendship Fiction

Cate Kay is the most famous author on the planet. But it’s just a name. Somehow, despite her bestselling novels and the record-breaking film franchise, the writer has remained completely anonymous. Anne Marie Callahan is the name nobody knows. Only the people she left behind. And Annie knows there’s no one there anymore who could connect the dots between the girl who ran away all those years ago and the famous novelist.

Fuyuko Irie is a freelance copy editor in her mid-thirties. Working and living alone in a city where it is not easy to form new relationships, she has little regular contact with anyone other than her editor, Hijiri, a woman of the same age but with a very different disposition. When Fuyoku stops one day on a Tokyo street and notices her reflection in a storefront window, what she sees is a drab, awkward and spiritless woman who has lacked the strength to change her life and decides to do something about it.

Audrey Parker's life changes forever when Pearl Harbor is attacked on December 7, 1941. Her brother, a talented young Navy pilot, had been stationed there, poised to fulfill their late father's distinguished legacy. Fresh out of nursing school with a passion and a born gift for helping others, both Audrey and her friend, Lizzie, suddenly find their nation on the brink of war. Driven to do whatever they can to serve, they enlist in the Army and embark on a new adventure as flight nurses.

When Elizabeth's husband dies, leaving her with crippling debt, the only person she can turn to is her friend, Jo. Soon Jo has called in her daughter, Lucy, to help save Elizabeth from bankruptcy. Leaving her old life behind, Lucy is determined to make the most of her fresh start. As life slowly begins to return to normal, these three women, thrown together by circumstance, become fast friends. But then Jo's world is turned upside down when she receives some shocking news. In search of solace, Jo and Elizabeth find themselves enjoying midnight dips in the freezing Irish Sea.

According to Confucius, ‘an educated woman is a worthless woman’, but Tan Yunxian – born into an elite family, yet haunted by death, separation and loneliness – is being raised by her grandparents to be of use. She begins her training in medicine with her grandmother and, as she navigates the male world of medicine, requiring tact and diplomacy, she struggles against the confining world of her class. From a young age, Yunxian learns about women’s illnesses, many of which relate to childbearing, alongside a young midwife-in-training, Meiling.

At Ridgewood High, Amy, Frankie, Rachael, and Nina formed a deep bond. Now, 15 years after leaving school behind, they’re back for a reunion, laughing, reminiscing, and chatting how much has changed - and how much hasn’t. But Frankie has an idea to help solve that: a singles cruise for the holidays.

Freycinet Barnes has built herself the perfect existence. With beautiful children, a successful husband and a well-ordered schedule, it's a life so full she simply doesn't fit. When she steps outside her calendar and is accidentally thrown into the generous bosom of the West Moonah Women's Choir, she finds music, laughter, friendship and a humming wellspring of rage. With the ready acceptance of the colourful choristers, Frey learns that voices can move mountains, fury can be kind and life can do with a bit of ruining.

Nisha Cantor and Sam Kemp are two very different women. Nisha, 45, lives the globetrotting life of the seriously wealthy, until her husband inexplicably cuts her off entirely. She doesn't even have the shoes she was, until a moment ago, standing in. That's because Sam—47, middle-aged, struggling to keep herself and her family afloat—has accidentally taken Nisha's gym bag. Now Nisha's got nothing. And Sam's walking tall with shoes that catch eyes—and give her a career an unexpected boost. Except Nisha wants her life back—and she'll start with her shoes....

In the turbulent summer of 1974, Kate Mularkey has accepted her place at the bottom of the eighth-grade social food chain. Then, to her amazement, the "coolest girl in the world" moves in across the street and wants to be her friend. Tully Hart seems to have it all - beauty, brains, ambition. On the surface they are as opposite as two people can be: Kate, doomed to be forever uncool, with a loving family who mortifies her at every turn.

A perfect next listen for fans of Abbi Waxman and Katherine Center, Can't Take It Back is a fast-paced and relatable debut telling the interconnected stories of four women over the course of a kindergarten school year. Huddled on their favorite park bench in a quiet Seattle suburb, Holly, Avery, Zoe, and Sasha might look like they've got it all figured out - but there’s more to their stories than meets the eye.

Saskia Wyle spent one sultry European summer on Île de Re when she was nineteen. The bright salt flats and sun-soaked beaches are now a distant memory, and one she made herself forget after an unspeakable tragedy. But the French heiress she befriended over twenty years ago has left half of her magnificent home to Saskia and the other half to Felix Allard, the now-reclusive film star living on the island. How did Simone Durant die? Was it the family curse that haunted her? And why has she included Saskia in her will after all this time?

Former Army brat Morgan Albright has finally planted roots in a friendly neighbourhood near Baltimore. Her friend and roommate Nina helps her make the mortgage payments, as does Morgan's job as a bartender. But after she and Nina host their first dinner party—attended by Luke, the flirtatious IT guy who'd been chatting her up at the bar—her carefully built world is shattered. The back door glass is broken, cash and jewelry are missing, her car is gone, and Nina lies dead on the floor. Soon, a horrific truth emerges: It was Morgan who let the monster in.

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.

Sophie Mills has worked her Manolo Blahniks off to reach the near-top of her profession. And she's very happy with her priorities in life - her job, her neurotic cat Artemis and her passion for shoes. After all, relationships only get in the way. And as for children? She hasn't even begun to think about them yet.

Penny can't help but compare herself to her friends. Annie is about to become a senior associate at her law firm, Bec has just got engaged, Leo is dating everyone this side of the Yarra, and Penny is just ... waiting. Waiting for Max, her on-again, off-again boyfriend, to allow her to spend the night, waiting for the promotion she was promised, waiting for her Valium to kick in. Waiting for her real life to start.

Twenty-eight-year-old Corie Harper embarks on an emotional journey after receiving a graduation letter she forgot she wrote. Although she spent a decade hiding her secrets, each page reminds her of the friendship she lost with her best friend, Scarlet, when her now-husband, Tucker, got between them. Scarlet, who hasn't seen Corie since, blazed her own path and left the past far behind. Or so she thinks. Pregnant with a baby she's scared to have, Scarlet must decide if she wants to continue alone or find the courage to mend her broken friendship.

London, 1944. Clara Button is no ordinary librarian. While the world remains at war, in East London, Clara has created the country's only underground library, built over the railway tracks in the disused Bethnal Green tube station. Down here, a whole community thrives: with hundreds of bunk beds, a café and a theatre offering shelter from the bombs that fall above. Along with her glamorous best friend and assistant librarian, Ruby Munroe, Clara ensures the library is the beating heart of life underground.

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.

Hannah has been running - literally and figuratively - from her life back in Australia. Whenever she's not working, she's pounding London's streets, putting the past behind her. Then she meets a fellow Australian named India, and Hannah's entranced. For India is confident, exotic and charming - qualities that Hannah feels she's desperately lacking. India has a secret, too - one beyond any remedy.

There's nothing quite so beautiful as Paris in the spring; and when you add in the chance to learn the French way of food, in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere, who can resist? Not Gabi Picabea or Kate Evans who have come from Australia to Sylvie Morel's Paris Cooking School. Both are at a crossroads, and learning to cook the French way in Paris, far away from all their troubles, seems like the perfect escape. For each of the women, that extraordinary April in Paris will bring unexpected twists and transformations that will change the course of their lives.