Women Friendship

Mrs Harris is a salt-of-the-earth London charlady who cheerfully cleans the houses of the rich. One day, when tidying Lady Dant's wardrobe, she comes across the most beautiful thing she has ever seen in her life - a Dior dress. In all the years of her drab and humble existence, she's never seen anything as magical as the dress before her, and she's never wanted anything as much before. Determined to make her dream come true, Mrs Harris scrimps, saves and slaves away until one day, after three long uncomplaining years, she finally has enough money to go to Paris.

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.

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.

Ruth and Hannah are sisters. They build each other up and tear each other down. Even as polar opposites they make each other laugh more than anyone else in the world. Ruth is forever single, aimless and wild while Hannah is radiant, organised and hard-working. Together, they are a force to be reckoned with. But a summer holiday changes everything, and Ruth finds herself entering a long period of self-imposed exile from the world.

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.

Brzeziny, Poland, 1939. Zofia's comfortable lifestyle overturns when her husband, Jabez, who monitors Nazi activity, has gone missing. Rather than fleeing the country with her young son, as she had promised Jabez who is fearing retaliation, she decides to stay. She cannot possibly leave her friend, Aanya. Since their childhood they have amazed fellow Brzeziners that it does not matter that Aanya is Jewish and deaf, and that Zofia is Catholic and hearing. Now, more than ever with war looming, Zofia will do whatever is necessary to protect her family and Aanya.

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.

Drawing on letters and diaries, some of which have never been published before, this book will reveal Jane Austen's bond with a family servant, the amateur playwright Anne Sharp, how Charlotte Brontë was inspired by the daring feminist Mary Taylor, the transatlantic relationship between George Eliot and the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and the underlying erotic charge that lit the friendship of Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield - a pair too often dismissed as bitter foes.

Every woman is searching for a happier, healthier, more fulfilling life. Many realize the significant role that an intimate, tightly knit circle of friends plays in creating a more fulfilling life, but with hectic schedules, frequent moves, and life changes, it's more important than ever for women to establish natural, meaningful friendships. In Friendships Don't Just Happen!, Shasta Nelson, friendship expert and CEO of GirlFriendCircles.com, reveals the most important proven steps, processes, and secrets vital to establishing the five different levels of friendships.

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.

Too often our friendships with other women can be marked by drama, competition, betrayal, and unforgiveness. As women, we can cause one another deep pain, creating wounds in need of healing. But we were made for connection and healthy friendships with other women to cheer each other on and fulfill our God-breathed purpose - together.

Janet Pimm is used to being invisible. 70 something, with her beloved allotment for company, she simply doesn't need anyone else. But when the local council threaten to close the allotments, Janet will do anything she can to try to save them - even enlisting the help of her irritatingly upbeat and interfering neighbour, Bev. As the two women set off on a journey together, Janet begins to realise that perhaps she isn't so happy to blend into the background after all. And that maybe there's more to Bev than she first thought.

For Samantha Miller's young fans—her 'girls'—she's everything they want to be. She's an oracle, telling them how to live their lives, how to be happy, how to find and honour their 'truth'. And her career is booming: she's just hit three million followers, her new book Chaste has gone straight to the top of the best-seller lists and she's appearing at sell-out events. Determined to speak her truth and bare all to her adoring fans, she's written an essay about her sexual awakening as a teenager, with her female best friend, Lisa.

When Lou Winterpicks up a dog-eared magazine in the dentist's waiting room and spots an article about clearing clutter, she little realises how it will change her life. What begins as an earnest spring clean soon spirals out of control. Lou's loved ones grow disgruntled. Why is clearing out cupboards suddenly more important than making his breakfast, her husband, Phil, wonders? The truth is, the more rubbish Lou lets go of, the more light and air can get to those painful, closed-up places at the centre of her heart.

From the author of the “bighearted...inspiring” (Vogue) memoir Kabul Beauty School comes a fiction debut as compelling as real life: The story of a remarkable coffee shop in the heart of Afghanistan, and the men and women who meet there - thrown together by circumstance, bonded by secrets, and united in an extraordinary friendship. After hard luck and some bad choices, Sunny has finally found a place to call home - it just happens to be in the middle of a war zone. The 38-year-old American’s pride and joy is the Kabul Coffee House.

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.

Celebrity cooking show host Marni McGuire has seen it all. She’s been married—twice—and widowed and divorced. Now in her mid-fifties, she’s single. Happily so. She just needs to convince her pregnant daughter, Bella, of this fact. And maybe convince herself, too. Especially after Marni’s efforts to humor her determined daughter result in a series of disastrous dates that somehow prompt Marni to wonder if maybe the right man for her is still out there after all.

Anna, 39, is reeling from the loss of her fiancé, who ran off with a much younger woman. Her pride in tatters, these days Anna finds it difficult to leave the house. So when a handsome, mysterious stranger takes an interest in her, she's not sure whether she can learn to trust again? Then there's Grace, in her 50s, trapped in a loveless marriage with a man she married because, unable to have children of her own, she fell in love with his motherless brood.

Midwife Ella Mehenick left the small Cornish town of Port Agnes for London and never looked back. But when her seemingly perfect life crashes down around her, there’s only one place she can heal her battered heart - the place she once called home. Ella is quickly welcomed into the small community midwife team and loves her new job caring for mums and their precious babies - it’s what she does best! But being back also means facing ex-flame Dan Ferguson...the first man to break her heart.