Showing titles in Friendship

July 1981. As the country prepares to celebrate Prince Charles’ wedding to Lady Diana, Libby flees London – and her cheating fiancé Marcus – for the Suffolk countryside. At Larkspur House, she hopes to put the pieces of her life back together. And Libby’s great-aunt Bess and renowned garden designer and former socialite Elfrida are happy to help. But for lifelong friends Bess and Elfrida, Libby’s arrival has stirred up the ghosts of the past. And before they can help her rebuild her shattered future, they must confront their own secrets, lost loves, and tragedies…

Frances Angel, drunk and disgruntled, arrives in Italy to attend the I Zingari Art School, leaving behind her dazzling career as a successful theatrical impresario and returning to a distant and painful past. She falls into an eclectic group of performance artists, ex-soldiers and a housewife who really just wants to paint something to match her settee.

For Evelyn, mornings pass as mornings always do. She ticks off the jobs at the laundromat and gives welcoming smiles to those who come in. If they've earned one. Evelyn knows what is going on in her community because she pays attention. She sees the weariness of the frazzled shop owners, the woman with the nasty boyfriend, the nice man with the curly-topped dog, the car parking war and the forgetful man. The community might not notice Evelyn, because it is easy to overlook the seemingly ordinary. But Evelyn is far from ordinary.

War has engulfed Europe and now the Pacific, and Australia is fighting for its future. For spinster Flora Atkins, however, nothing much has changed. Tending her dull office job and beloved brother and father, as well as knitting socks for the troops, leaves her relatively content. Then one day, a stranger gives her brother a white feather and Flora's anger propels her out of her safe life and into the vineyards of the idyllic Mildura countryside, a member of the Australian Women's Land Army.

As a renowned chef, single-dad Archer never planned on moving to a small town, let alone running a pancake restaurant. But Dream Harbor needs a new chef, and Archer needs a community to help raise his daughter, Olive. Iris has never managed to hold down a job for more than a few months. So when Mayor Kelly suggests Archer is looking for a nanny, and Iris might be available, she shudders at the thought. As Archer and Iris get used to their new roles, is it possible that they might have more in common than they first thought, or is Olive just determined to play match-maker…

Alice is stifled, bored, and misunderstood. So when she meets wealthy and handsome American, Bennett Van Cleve, she is quickly swept off her feet. Marrying him and moving to America seems like a great adventure - but life as a newlywed in stuffy Baileyville, Kentucky, is not at all what she hoped for. Until, that is, she responds to a call for volunteers to start a travelling library, surprising herself by saying yes, before her husband can say no.

Freya is desperate for escape from her messy breakup when she’s offered a job caring for elderly Kathleen in the seaside village of Heaven’s Cove. Kathleen’s once-red hair is now a brilliant white, but there’s always laughter in her Irish lilt - until the day Freya finds her weeping, her gaze fixed on Driftwood House, perched on the cliffs above the village. She refuses to say what’s wrong.

For the last seven years Mel has been hiding; from life, from her friends and from those who love her the most—her family. But being at home in her beloved Lake District has been far too painful for Mel to contemplate. Because seven years ago, Mel lost everything and she’s never been able to banish the dark clouds that follow her. When Mel returns to Willowdale for a family event, she has no intention of staying. But surrounded by her family she begins to realise just how much she's been missing and also, how much healing she still needs to do.

At seven o'clock one Tuesday evening, in a perfectly ordinary tower block near Westminster, four strangers meet for the first time. They each have three things in common: all suffered a traumatic experience six months earlier; all exhibit a dogged inability to put it behind them; and all accepted an invitation to attend tonight's counselling session with the unconventional Genevieve - a determined woman with an unusual theory to test.

Meet Lana, Judith and Catrin. Best friends since primary school when they swore an oath on a Curly Wurly wrapper that they would always be there for each other, come what may. After the trip of a lifetime, the three girls are closer than ever. But an unexpected turn of events shakes the foundation of their friendship to its core, leaving their future in doubt - there’s simply too much to forgive, let alone forget. An innocent childhood promise they once made now seems impossible to keep.

Amelia Harris has played it safe all her life - but when a minor accident lands her in hospital, she dramatically quits the tedious office job she's been working at for a decade. When her mother, Toni, asks her what she wants to do, Amelia is at a loss. Out of sheer desperation, she tries her hand at the dream jobs she's always fantasised about. Soon Amelia's shadowing a thrilling cast of characters and professions - as a journalist, a florist, a wedding planner, a zookeeper, and more. Life couldn't be more exciting, especially when she meets the man of her dreams.

When high flying, workaholic Katy Smith is suddenly made redundant, she needs to find a job fast! After mistakenly answering an advert online, she quickly realises that the rundown railway station in sleepy Cranfield isn’t the 5-star London hotels she’s used to working in! But a job’s a job. Right? Chef Ryan Connelly is having a crisis of confidence after his Italian dream turns sour. Returning home to try to pick up the pieces of his parents broken marriage, he soon discovers that his family home, the railway station, is close to financial ruin.

From the Winner of the 2016 Stella Prize for The Natural Way of Things. Four older women have a lifelong friendship of the best kind: loving, practical, frank and steadfast. But when Sylvie dies, the ground shifts dangerously for the remaining three. Can they survive together without her? They are Jude, a once-famous restaurateur, Wendy, an acclaimed public intellectual, and Adele, a renowned actress now mostly out of work. Struggling to recall exactly why they've remained close all these years, the grieving women gather for Christmas at Sylvie's old beach house.

For 70-year-old Marion Gaynor, the answer lies in opening her doors-and her heart-to two unexpected housemates: Felicity Booth, a brilliant but frazzled PhD student, balancing research and the chaos of academia, and Lana Rolls, newly separated and searching for a fresh start. Together, these three women discover that friendship blooms in the unlikeliest of places, and the bonds they form will change their lives forever.

Oxford, 1920. For the first time in its 1000-year history, the world’s most famous university has admitted female students. Giddy with dreams of equality, education and emancipation, four young women move into neighbouring rooms on Corridor Eight. They have come here from all walks of life, and they are thrown into an unlikely, life-affirming friendship.

In Troy, Georgia, Lula Dean has decided to cleanse the town’s reading habits. All banned books have been removed from public spaces, and the townspeople are only allowed to read books Lula has deemed ‘appropriate’. But a small group refuse to be told what they can and can’t read. The revolution is coming . . .

Chance brings together Nina Thomas and elderly Laura Chadwick just at the time when Laura is in need of a friend to help with an interfering family member. Their growing bond is one thing that Nina will be sorry to leave behind as she relocates from Australia to England, but they promise to stay in touch. It will prove to be a significant friendship.

London vet Charlotte Walker has taken up a fellowship on the tiny remote island of Tuga de Oro to study the endangered gold coin tortoises in the jungle interior. She can claim the best of reasons for this year in paradise - what better motivation than to save a species? - but the reality is more complex. For Charlotte has a secret that connects her to the island, and has finally determined to solve the mystery that has dominated her life. But she will have little time for any of her declared or covert investigations.

Our brains stay active for 10 minutes after our heart stops beating. For Leila, each minute brings with it a new memory: growing up with her father and his wives in a grand old house in a quiet Turkish town; watching the women gossip and wax their legs while the men went to mosque; sneaking cigarettes and Western magazines on her way home from school; running away to Istanbul to escape an unwelcome marriage; falling in love with a student who seeks shelter from a riot in the brothel where she works.

When Amy Ashton's world fell apart 11 years ago, she started a collection. Just a few keepsakes of happier times: some honeysuckle to remind herself of the boy she loved, a chipped china bird, an old terracotta pot.... Things that others might throw away, but to Amy, represent a life that could have been. Now her house is overflowing with the objects she loves - soon there'll be no room for Amy at all. But when a family move in next door, a chance discovery unearths a mystery, and Amy's carefully curated life begins to unravel.