Time for another Good Shit Vs. Shit To Avoid, this time prompted by Amanda, who is searching for books with strong female friendships:
I am looking for a book to read. I’ve been a little bored with the romance
novel offerings and here’s why: Why doesn’t anybody ever have a friend?
None of the women ever have any friends! I mean, sometimes they have a
convenient “This is my friend, sometimes I see her in a park, a ballroom
(if historical), or in yoga class (if contemporary). We talk for five
minutes and then we don’t think about each other for weeks.”In fact, the only romance novel I’ve ever read with a strong female
friendship right at the center is “Bet Me” by Jennifer Crusie. I’d love
to read more books about women who not only have moving relationships but
great friendships with other women. Can the bitchery help?
It’s a tricky balance, since the friendships that contain those friends known as Sequel Bait must be heroine-potential but not overshadowing the heroine herself. Yet the friends must also be strong characters that reveal more about the hero or heroine—surely heroes can have female friends, right? The first books that pop into my head are the Wallflower Quartet stories by Lisa Kleypas, which are centered on four women friends in London. There are some where the friends are in the background – The Devil in Winter only has a few scenes of the quartet being themselves, for example – but the characters as a group serving as the focus point of all four (or wait, aren’t there five now?) books seemed startling and new to me at the time of publication.
Another book with a very strong and I thought believable friendship – though not between a man and a woman – is in Julie James’ Something About You. l liked the heroine’s friends (of both genders!) as much as I liked the heroine herself.
What about you? What books do you adore that feature strong friendships among characters who aren’t the hero and heroine? Amanda specifically asked for friendships between women, but I’m also open to your suggestions for friendships that cross gender lines.
For a historical romance in which the heroine has a very close, non-gay male friend, you can’t do better than Georgette Heyer’s Sylvester.
Love all these recommendations and I immediately thought of Susan Donovan’s for a contemporary look on friendships. Glad others brought up her name.
I haven’t read the last one in her dog-walking trilogy because I didn’t LOVE the first two, but I do remember the friendship scenes and thought they were great.
I 3rd, 4th, and completely recommend ALL the ones listed above especially Eloisa James, Nora Roberts, JD Robb, Jill Mansel, etc. 🙂
Looks like I was beat to it, I was going to say Kresley Cole! Great females of all varieties 😀
Meg Cabot’s Educating Caroline (written as Patricia Cabot, I think) not only has a strong friendship, it even passes the Bechdel test, as Caroline’s friend is a Sufraggete and more interested in talking about Women’s Rights and Politics than about men.
On the other hand, the important sector of a romance novel is the romance itself. Some people have close friends who have such a large part in the woman’s life that they are necessary to the plot. Others meet the guy in some extraordinary circumstances. Some have been isolated for some reason from their family and friends (by moving a long way or some trauma or something) and the arrival of the ‘hero’ is the start of a new circle of friends/family.
Back to Jayne Ann Krentz, I just re-read Sizzle and Burn, one of her Arcane novels, and the heroine has exactly two friends and they are a gay couple, contemporaries of her aunt who raised her. She has other acquaintances and her shop assistant is a friend. She also hears voices when she touches things and is worried she’s going to go crazy like her aunt did. There are similar circumstances several of the Arcane books, now that I think about it. Maybe having extreme psychic talents is inherently isolating.
I think my long, rambling point is that not everyone has a best friend with whom they share every thought. Some are introverts and tend to surprise everyone around us when they do reveal something. Some are in extraordinary circumstances.
And if the point of a romance novel is the romance, we really need to see the couple working out their relationship as the center of the story.
Rachel Morgan and Ivy from Kim Harrison’s Hollows books.
Mary Balogh’s Simply quartet. The four heroines are friends and fellow teachers. You definitely get to see them interact with each other and confide in each other. And definitely La Nora’s Bride Quartet!
Admittedly not a female-female friendship, but I LOVE Gail Carriger’s portrayal of a non-sexual male-female friendship in the Parasol Protectorate series. There is also an interesting couple of female-female friendships in that series, but since the characters are of such unequal social station, there is a bit of an odd dynamic there.
For a contemporary with both good (and bad) female/female friendships and female/male friendships, there’s Emily Giffin’s Something Borrowed. Also coming out as a movie soon, which scares me a bit, but Ginnifer Goodwin is starring (finally!), so my hopes are raised.
Serena and Fanny are good friends in Georgette Heyer’s Bath Tangle, despite Fanny being Serena’s (younger) step-mother. Elena and Paige become good friends in Kelley Armstrong’s Women of the Otherworld series.
In Sean Kennedy’s Tigers and Devils, the gay hero Simon has an awesome friendship with a married couple, Roger and Fran.
When it comes to J. D. Robb two things:
1. It’s a Really long series, and from what I have read of it. It seems like you have start at the beginning. (And read almost every book.) Its hard just to pick up one and read it. (This is not as much of a problem if you have Kindle, Nook, etc.
2. Even 20 books in or whatever Eve seems really unnatural with her female friendships. It seems stiff and unnatural.
3. They contain really dark depressing and slightly over the top crimes. If you like light hearted books this is not for you.
I recommend the Pink Carnation series. Amy is friends with her cousin Jane. Henerietta is best friend with Charlotte and Penelope. Eloise is friends with Pammy and Alex?).
Also except for her latest series, I second Eloisa James.
I just finished reading Too Wicked to Kiss by Erica Ridley which was more entertaining than it sounds. The main character and her cousin kind of built an interesting friendship over the course of the novel as the cousin halfheartedly tried to ensnare the hero. I really liked both of the girls because they were so different from each other, so their burgeoning friendship added a really entertaining element to the story. I think the second book is about the cousin, but I’m not sure.
I second the recommendation for Rachel Gibson’s Boise Writers series.
Elizabeth Peters/Barbara Michaels sometimes has close female friendships in her suspense/romance books, especially when writing as Michaels. Sometimes they get more lines than the heroes! I’m thinking about Shattered Silk and Vanish With the Rose in particular. Do note that they’re both a little more toward the suspense side than the romance, but excellent reads nonetheless.
I’d also mention her Vicki Bliss series; Herr Anton Schmidt is the best friend any gal could hope for, though he’s more central to some of the books than others.
I would say the later series of books for Emily Carmichael’s Piggy series (“Hearts of Gold” trilogy: Gone to the Dogs, The Cat’s Meow, A New Leash on Life) shows a lot of strength in friendship for the Nell, McKenna, and Jane. They’ve got their animal sidekicks/helpers, but the bigger thing is who they rally around. When one’s down, the other two pick up. It’s a nice change because there’s no jealousy, or male drama. Just…friends. I can appreciate the heck out of that. And they’re each individual characters.
It’s paranormal since Piggy’s a dead-woman-turned-dog and the animals can talk sometimes but it’s the fact the women aren’t hating on other women that make me happy. There’s drama and issues, yes, but it’s not the same thing as only the clique matters either. They’re willing to try talking to other people.
I was disappointed with the other Piggy books and couldn’t finish them, but the later series is excellent and you don’t need to read the first to know because there’s a sum up in the beginning.
I have been tending toward edgier paranormal romances and urban fantasy stories these days, so I agree with the Shelly Laurenston, Patricia Briggs and Nora Roberts/JD Robb recs. Shelly Laurenston’s first book Pack Challenge had the 3 friends Sara, Miki and Angelina at it’s core. And yes each got her own story but characters in all 3 books often got their own stories. SL writes character rich. 🙂 I’d also add Ilona Andrews and Devon Monk. Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy series also featured a good friendship between girls, but it is a YA. All of these authors are very good at building characters and developing a world that includes interpersonal relationships that go beyone the hero-heroine main couple. Although as someone mentioned most of these are not light hearted romances as they deal with paranormal crimes and other sorts of gritty magical and non magical chaos. 🙂
They’re sequel-esque, but Henrietta/Charlotte/Penelope are firends in the Lauren Willig books.
Patricia Wrede’s Sorcery and Cecelia series involves the friendship between cousins Cecelia and Kate.
Although I absolutely adore Patricia Briggs’ books and the Mercy series in particular, Mercy doesn’t actually have any female friends. She has a wonderful friendship with a gay couple, and we see great scenes of that, but otherwise she doesn’t have any no-strings friends. She’s car fixing friends with Stephan the vampire (though that’s related to avoiding paying the vampire mafia), Sam was a potential love interest/ex-boyfriend and she doesn’t really seem to hang out with Tony outside of work/needing help…. But I do love the series!
For an awesome male (Yuri, Kirill) and female (Sonya) friendship with the heroine, and an exhilarating and complex romance (Ilya x Tess) inside a sci-fi novel, I highly recommend Jaran by Kate Elliot. It is my favorite romance that isn’t a romance novel.
This is true, but romance novels often take it to the extreme. I’m very introverted and even I have at least 3 friends (2 female, 1 male) who I would talk to about any relationship I got into that I even thought might get serious.
As you say, sometimes the lack of friends is a plot point either because of unusual circumstances or because the heroine’s isolation is part of who she is. I have no problem with that and have enjoyed many books where that’s the case.
I do mind the sense that I sometimes get that the heroine is totally isolated because if she had even one Get A Grip Girlfriend the whole book would unravel. That’s mostly the case with Big Misunderstanding stories which I hate like a skin rash.
Lauryn Willig’s books have strong female friendships, even a female network of SPIES with coded letters wherein phrases like “attended a Venetian breakfast” means “was confronted by a dangerous French operative”!
I would add the Navy Seal books by Suzanne Brockmann, but I guess those are mostly about men.
Gail Carriger is fantastic at writing friendships. Definitely check out her Parasol Protectorate series.
Several of Julie Garwood’s books – both historical and contemporary – have strong female friendships among characters. Murder List, The Secret, Ransom, Slow Burn, Sizzle are the first that come to mind. Some of these characters get their own stories later on without overshadowing the heroine in her own story. Strong sibling relationships are also prevalent.
Pamela Clare’s I-Team books also have strong female friendship. As each team member gets married, the husbands get integrated into the group and often show up as male friends more than the female friends appear.
Jill Shalvis’ Instant Gratification (2nd Wilder book) is the first one that pops to mind for a female/male friendship. Heroine’s best friend is male (sometimes friend with benefit) in the story. Friendship trumphs sexual relationship.
I have the perfect author for you then. I’m currently tearing my way through all of Shelly Laurenston’s books. I’ve already read her Magnus Pack books (3 of them) and I’m almsot through the Mane series. They all are “shifter” centric books but allllll of them have a central group of girls (women) that are super close friends. In the Magnus books it center around a trio of girlfriends and the theme is carried out pretty heavily in all three books, over above and around the romance and other sub plots. The Mane books dont revolve around one group of friends but all the lead female characters have very close friends and THEY DONT ABANDON THEM when they find their hot to trot forever lover.
This author is freakishly amusing too. She is a new favorite and MUST BUY the second a book comes out author for me.
I would recommend Victoria Dahl’s Tumble Creek series (Talk Me Down, Start Me Up, and Lead Me On). Each of the main women in the series are friends, particularly in the first two, and even though the friendships aren’t a huge part of the books, they’re important and believable. Plus the books are just really good!
My all time favorite set of female friends are in a series of 4 short stories by Erin McCarthy, about 4 friends who live in Cleveland. The stories are “Hard Drive” in Bad Boys Online, “Fuzzy Logic” in Bad Boys Over Easy, “The Lady of the Lake” in When Good Things Happen to Bad Boys, and “It’s About Time” in Bad Boys of Summer. I don’t think they are collected in one book yet, which is too bad.
The thing I love about these stories is that both the romances and the friendships ring true, and the friends keep their personalities even after their HEAs, which doesn’t always happen in romance series. And they seem like real friends – worrying about each other, complaining about each other, fussing about bad clothing choices, showing up when it counts.
Also, can’t forget Room for Improvement by Stacey Ballis. It has a great set of best friends – and one of them is a lesbian, which is much less common than a gay male best friend.
One of the best female/male friendships I can remember reading would be the Modesty Blaise and Willie Garvin relationship in the books by Peter O’Donnell. The books are a bit dated, but a fun ride nonetheless.
Female/female friendships are the best in Nora Roberts and her alterego J. D. Robb books. If you are interested in SF, try Elizabeth Moon, David Weber’s Honorverse, and Anne McCaffrey. For mystery, try Rita Mae Brown’s Mrs. Murphy series. The women in that series are friends as well as friendly adversaries.
Probably56: There are probably 56 other books that I would rec if I could remember them right now.
For most of The Windflower, Cat (and Raven and Cook and Will Saunders) are the only friends Merry has.
I second the Ain’t She Sweet recommendation. I liked that re-building her female friendships was as important to the heroine’s happiness as her romantic relationship with the hero. That’s something I don’t see often in romance – friendship breakups or makeups – even though friendship breakups can be much more traumatic than romantic breakups.
Wow, you haven’t read many books in which the females have friends?! Then you haven’t been reading Harlequin series romance books!
This is one of my biggest complaints about them: too many friends! I’m SICK of their friends! Chicks who drop everything the instant the phone rings and run to their friend in need—and for some weird reason they always travel in gangs of three or four. It doesn’t matter if one of them is giving birth or getting married or on their honeymoon. If another “gang member” calls, they are on their way. Neither rain, nor sleet, nor husband’s complaints will stop them! The sweetness overload is enough to raise your insulin levels.
I think the relationships between women are much more convincing than either the mystery or romance elements in Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series. At this point all her characters slip into caricature at times, but, for me, the initial attraction of the Plum books were the interactions of Stephanie with friends and family. So honest, and so hilarious.
Nicole Peeler’s Jane True books have some fairly well drawn female friendships, although they do seem so provide more buddy jeopardy elements than character development to the stories.
Finally, I have to say that J.D. Robb’s Eve Dallas was the first thing that came to mind, not simply because of the slow, carefully detailed development of Eve’s friendships over the course of the series, but because Eve’s friends are friends to one another as well. Kerry Greenwood’s Prynne Fisher and Corinna Chapman mysteries have a similar quality. Basically, the reader ends up wanting to spend time with the main character’s circle of friends. Although these are mysteries, there are strong romance threads in all of these series.
Most of the recommendations seem to be trilogies or series (serieses?) where each of a number of friends has her own book while the others appear in them all. And yes, I love JD Robb’s Eve Dallas in part because of the friendships developed over the long-running series.
But I didn’t get, from the quoted request, that Amanda was looking for more romance per se. She might want to look at the category of “women’s fiction with a strong romantic element”, as Romance Writers of America calls a recently added genre for their RITA awards.
One book I just finished and absolutely loved was THE PROPER CARE AND MAINTENANCE OF FRIENDSHIP by Lisa Verge Higgins. (She used to write historical romances as Lisa Ann Verge.) Yes, there’s romance in it, but as the title hints, the story revolves around three friends who each receive a letter from their just-deceased fourth friend who asks each of them to do something totally uncharacteristic (sky-diving, for example), but which winds up being exactly what each needed. It’s outstanding and requires a Kleenex or two.
Definitely The Secret by Julie Garwood. Loved that friendship and that book!
Stephanie Laurens’ Cynster wives and bastion Club wives all become friends. The wives in Johanna Lindsey’s Mallory series are friends too. In Lindsey’s book Man of My Dreams, heroine Megan Penworthy has a best friend named Tiffany.
Those are all that I could remember!
Open Season, by Linda Howard and The Secret, by Julie Garwood
Wait! I’m either smoking crack or groggy this morning … i didn’t mean to submit Open Season (though it’s a great book)! I meant Mr. Perfect, by Linda Howard. Whoops.
Teresa Medeiros’ Whisper of Roses has a great friendship for both the hero and heroine (their cousins, I believe) and those characters also form one of the subplots. The characters are engaging and the friendships are believable and touching. For contemporary, I just finished reading Gena Showalter’s Ecstasy in Darkness (the Alien Huntress series) and there is a strong female friendship throughout that book as well. Whisper of Roses is one of my all-time favorites and I thought Ecstasy in Darkness was excellent.
Sorry, I should have said paranormal, not contemporary for Gena Showalter’s book…
I really enjoyed the friendship in the Perfect trilogy by Julie Ortolon. I downloaded the first book on a whim when it was free from Amazon. It is a trilogy but each could be read as a stand alone I think. They don’t have a lot of face time but they do communicate very regularly and have active roles in the lives of their friends. It was really nice to read about the heroine having strong relationships with people other than the hero.
Randi,
If you’re looking for books in which the heroine has male friends, you might want to try Girl from Mars, by Julie Cohen. The whole premise of the story is built around the fact that the heroine is best friends with 3 guys, all geeks like her. None of them have had successful relationships, so they vow to hang out together. All the characters develop and change over the course of the book, and the heroine has some big changes in her career too (she’s a comic-book artist).
Kate Daniels in the books by Ilona Andrews has a close female friend, and her sometimes-sidekick Derek and her sometimes-partner Jim are both guys.