Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

The first ones that come to mind are The Bride Quartet by Nora Roberts.  Some of the best parts of those books are the friendships between the 4 women of Vows.

I have to agree with Kaetrin. 

Nora Roberts writes about strong women and strong women relationships.  Whilst you will likely get a trilogy or quartet with these characters you usually don’t mind.

We were just discussing this on the weekend at my crit group. It’s become a cliche to have the single girl with no friends at all. Which is pretty pathetic if it was real life. Sure, the friends shouldn’t intrude too much and take over in the story, but for a character to ring true, they need friends.

Women in romance novels do seem to be shortchanged when it comes to female friends; at least in historicals, the men seem more likely to have (sequel bait) friends than the women. And I agree with Ebony MKenna, it doesn’t ring true for a character to be so isolated.

Still, a few female friendships I can think of:
Gaelen Foley’s Knight Miscellany Books: Jacinda Knight and Lizzie Carlisle.
Loretta Chase, Captives of the Night: Leila Beaumont and Fiona, Lady Carroll. Esme from The Lion’s Daughter has a close friend in Donika, but the latter is a pretty minor character. I suppose you can add Lydia and Tamsin from The Last Hellion.
Julia Quinn - Penelope Featherington and Eloise Bridgerton in the Bridgerton books; Miranda Cheever and Olivia Bevelstoke.
Liz Carlyle - Sidonie and Julia in The Devil to Pay.
Jennifer Crusie - not just Bet Me, she has several books with female friendships.
SEP - Match Me If You Can for sure, possibly others?

Two more that aren’t strictly romances novels:
Jennifer Donnelly’s The Winter Rose - India and Ella (there’s also India’s med school friend Harriet).
Tatiana doesn’t have any female friends in The Bronze Horseman, but has a very good friend (Vikki) in the other two books in the trilogy as well as lots of more casual friends from her hospital job in The Summer Garden.

I agree with Wallflower Quartet—great series with great heroines.

Robyn Dehart’s (unfinished) Ladies Amateur Sleuth Society also featured a great friendship between the women in each story.

Jennifer Crusie’s Anyone but You and Strange Bedfellows.  And Agnes and the Hitman.

Most of Eloisa James’ Duchess series.

I always liked how Shelly Laurenston writes her paranormal/contempory heroines.

Sure there are sequels where friends find their men but these ladies are always completely loyal to their friendships and never forget to spend time with their friends just because they found the man in their life.

I also enjoy how, when characters appear as cameos in later novels, it’s usually in a social setting that makes sense considering what yu know about the character from previous books.

For my favourite friendship read the three novels: The Mane Event, The Beast in Him and The Mane Attraction so that you can hang out with Brenda Lee and Sissy Mae in their wild and crazy way.

I’m going to add some Kresley Cole to the list.  I really enjoyed the friendship between Lucia and Regan in Pleasure of a Dark Prince. 

Capture: were13.  Yes, I think there are at least 13 were in the series!

As Rose and Sarah W have already pointed out, Bet Me is not the only Crusie in which close female friendships are at the centre of the story.  I would actually say that this applies to most of her novels (I haven’t read the most recent ones, since the first Mayer collaboration), but would specifically add Crazy for You to Sarah W’s list of examples.  Also her early book Manhunting, and of course Fast Women.  In fact, female friendships are almost as characteristic of her stories as dogs are.

Female friendships also feature in many of Jayne Ann Krentz’s novels, contemporary, historical and futuristic/paranormal.  They do not always take the form of the heroine herself having very close female friends, though they often do, but actual gay couples (both male and female) are a recurring motif in the general circles of friends around JAK’s central characters.

The Secret by Julie Garwood had what I thought was a really fantastic friendship - that friendship is basically what drove the story.

And, it’s already been mentioned, but strong friendships are all over the place in Nora Roberts books.

I understand that the Gay Friend has become something of a cliché in some chick lit and romance, but again, Crusie has done this well and realistically (e.g. Joe in Charlie All Night and Cal’s friend Shanna in Bet Me).  Both JAK and Crusie create characters that ring true in the settings they depict, without necessarily setting up the secondary characters as central characters for future books.
Just like real life.

Yes, I’ll second Kresley Cole and Nora Roberts.  Also I liked the friendship dynamic in Jayne Ann Krentz books Light in Shadow and also Truth or Dare.  Now it’s been mentioned I’m going to be looking at the heroines in books I’m reading and wonder why they have no friends.

Oh, thanks for this list!

My two centavos: Shelly Munroe, The Bottom Line. A group of Australian buds who call themselves “The Tight Five,” which is apparently a rugby move - depicts true friendships, and the women in the novels are all growing and testing boundaries and changing, as real people do.

Susan Andersen - Cutting Lose and Bending the Rules (although they are sequel bait).

Also

Susan Elizabeth Phillips in Ain’t She Sweet - has the ‘Seawillows’ a very strong group of female friends…although the heroine spends most of the book at odds with them.

Besides those already mentioned, in Regencies, one of Mary Balogh’s interconnected series (starting with Dark Angel) has a strong female friendship between the cousins Samantha and Jennifer; her “Simply” series also has strong friendships between the teachers at a girls school, who feature in the various books. Also, Marjorie Farrell’s Miss Ware’s Refusal and Lady Barbara’s Dilemma have a very strong friendship between the main characters.

It’s my question!  I’m internet famous!  Thanks for the suggestions, and I’ll keep checking back.  And AgTigress, I do know that the Crusie books in general have great friendships/family relationships in them.  It’s why I’ve read EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.  Bet Me just happens to be my favorite.  Which is why I read it for the (probably 15th) time yesterday…

Erin McCarthy’s “You Don’t Know Jack.”  For erotic romance there’s “Maverick’s Black Cat” and “Friends With Benefits” by Maggie Casper and Lena Matthews.  The heroines in those two books are best friends who end up with heroes who are best friends.

I think series of books tend to do better with how relationships change & evolve.  For that, I would recommend Patricia Briggs’ Mercy series, Charlene Harris (even beyond the vampire books) and NR’s Eve Dallas series.  For modern contemporary, Susan Mallery (thought frequently, frequently sequel bait) has her characters interact with both old & new friends.  The race car series by Erin McCarthy also links the women together fairly strongly as friends beyond the link between the drivers.

Another great contemporary friendship spans Susan Donovan’s series Ain’t to Proud to Beg, The Night She Got Lucky, and Not That Kind of Girl. I loved this group of women…and their dogs, which match them so well.

Eloisa James’ Essex sisters as well as the Duchesses. Yeah, they’re sisters, but they are also friends. And you have to toss Griselda in there as well.

I agree with all who mentioned Nora Roberts, Susan Anderson, and Susan E Phillips books. But other authors who do good friendship books are Rachel Gibsons with Sex Lies and On LIne Dating, I’m In No Mood for Love and Not Another Bad Date. And Toni Blake has a great gal pals in her Destiny seriem One Reckless Summer, Sugar Creek and Whisper Falls.

I’ll echo Eloisa James.  In fact, all her series (though I haven’t read her latest) have some friendship elements that extend across the series.

I’ve just recently discovered Jill Mansell, and I love, love, love her books. They were recommended to me by another reading friend, and I’m going through them now. They’re contemporary, and take place in England, and are romantic and hilarious. The ones I’ve read have the heroine with a strong group of friends - in the one I’ve just finished, Rumour Has It, the heroine’s relationship with her best friend actually gives the story its impetus, and there’s a strong group of intermingled friends throughout, some of whom have their own plot arc going.  Plus the ending made me swoon. And then laugh out loud. They are not series books, so the friendships are not sequel bait.

I can’t recommend them enough for a fun, romantic, and touching read.

I’m going to echo the recommendation of Julia Quinn—the Eloise/Penelope friendship in “Romancing Mr. Bridgerton” and the Miranda/Olivia friendship in “The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever” specifically come to mind.

I’ll second Anna Persson on Shelley Laurenston.

Anyone got any recs for heroines with MALE friends that aren’t gay and who’ve never dated? I have those in real life and it always amazes me that heroines never have guy friends. Am I the only one that thinks that’s weird?

Check out Regency-set historicals by Madeline Hunter in the Rarest Blooms series. The first book is Ravishing in Red.

It’s interesting how many of these are historicals or contemps without a suspense plot or paranormal (I think…haven’t read them all!). In many paranormals or suspenses, the plotting and action are so tight, I guess there’s not room to depict a believable friendship.

When I started thinking about books with friendships, I mostly thought of historicals or women’s fiction.

Here’s my contribution to the list: Natalie Damschroder’s Fight or Flight, which came out recently from Carina, is a women’s fiction/romance/suspense hybrid in which one of the protagonists is the mom and another is the daughter, who has two very close friends that get involved in the plot.

Yes, yes, yes to NR and JC. Also Christina Dodd’s first Governess books - although she did miss the opportunity for an epic women united moment in Hannah’s book. When her partners should have been outraged, they conspired allowing the men to stand back all smug & we know what’s best for the little woman. Hated that. Anyhow a lot of her books feature close relationships between friends and family.
And yes, Kresley Cole’s Valkyrie & Witches have some good sisterhood going.
spamword: friends55 - how appropriate.

There is decent friendship in Anne Mallory’s Seven Secrets to Seduction and One Night is Never Enough. 

Suzanne Enoch’s London’s Perfect Scoundrel also has the group of plotting friends like the Wallflowers.

Candice Hern’s Merry Widows series has some great friendships bewteen all her ladies. Lady Be Bad, In the Thrill of the Night, and Just One of Those Flings

I love her characters, because it feels like I could be sitting around having tea with them, or sneaking a scotch or something fun.

Tammora Pierce books have strong male and female friendships, although they are not strictly romances.

How about the In Death series, eve has to deal with having friends like Dr. Mira, Peabody, Mavis, and Feeny.  She learns how to accept having friends and it provides some comical moments along the way.

word having68, Hope the series goes to 68 books.

Loretta Chase often has good friendships. One that springs to mind is “Your Scandalous Ways” - the heroine’s best friend has her own goals, gives wise advice to Our Heroine, and is generally just about as interesting as Our Heroine is.

Stephanie Rowe’s “Date Me Baby, One More Time” had a best friend who was integral to the plot. Sure, she was a female dragon obsessed with online dating, but…well, if you read it, then it would make sense. I hear the second book in the series is better than the first.

Linnea Sinclair’s “Games of Command” had a pretty strong friendship, but is probably the weakest Sinclair book I’ve ever read (sadly).

I’m taking notes on everyone else’s recommendations - I’m looking for books with good female friendships, too!

I too was going to mention the Robb in death books - it takes a while for some of the friendships to deveop - its has to do with Eve growing and changing as a person but they come up often and in recurring ways.  some, like peabody, nadine, mira and mavis are thre often, others appear sporadically.

Also the Brown siblings series by Lauren Dane has an extensicve network of friends (often as fmaily to the characters) yes they are sequel bait, but they are sooo much more to the characters as well.  These are erotica and there are 3 in the series with a fourth on the way.

someone earlier mentioned Erin McCarthy.  In addition to those books, her race car series has strong friendships as well.

Wylykat, you stole my point!  I immediately thought about J.D. Robb’s Eve Dallas and her developing friendships throughout the series.  Eve encounters Peabody in the second book, becomes her mentor, helps her through love affairs, makes her a partner.  Mavis is a friend from the start, of course.  Dr. Mira starts out as an authority figure and eventually not only a friend but a mother figure.  Then there is Nadine Furst who goes from reporter to friend and Dr. Dimato who becomes closer as the books go on.  That is what I particularly like about this series.  Nora Roberts (J.D. Robb) slowly develops her secondary characters—giving them a prominent role or focus in one book and then not in the next.  You never know going into a new book whether one of Eve’s friends might suddenly have a very important role in the latest book.  For a loner like Eve Dallas, the slowly growing friendships and relationships that have developed over the series add emotional depth and cause me to re-read the series and key books again and again.  In fact I’m listening to the audio versions of the books now.

@Randi - I don’t know how common male-female friendships would have been during some of the more popular historical settings. But I do agree that it seems strange for heroines in contemporaries to have no male friends. As for your request, the only one I can immediately think of Blue-Eyed Devil by Lisa Kleypas (Haven and Todd). Of course there are a lot of friends-to-lovers books, but that’s not what you’re looking for, right?

I agree with many of the recs so far:  J.D. Robb’s In Death books, Shelly Laurenston, NR, JC. 

I’d add Heidi Bett’s Chicks with Sticks series, starting with Tangled Up in Love.  Though there’s a little bit of a knitting with yarn that was magically woven storyline, it’s small, and the rest is straight contemporary and centers around a circle of close female friends who support each other and just happen to knit as well.  Funny and sweet.

The Bride Quartet was the first thing I thought of too.

I also want to add Sherryl Woods. Her Sweet Magnolia books (2 trilogies) features best friends (2 generations). Her other books are a blend of friendships and family relationships.

another “vote” for susan donovan’s recent trilogy.

this recommendation comes with a “your mileage may vary” caveat, because after the first book the series just seemed a bit mary-sue-y and heck, calling them wallpaper historicals would be an understatement [stencil historical? i dunno], but you could give jacquie d’allessandro’s “...at midnight” series a go. bunch of gal pals have a “secret literary society” reading books deemed generally inappropriate for the ladyfolk—“frankenstein”, a courtesan’s memoirs or something, that kind of thing—and each subsequent member meets their OTP.

the first book, “sleepless at midnight” was really good but imo the next three just sort of progress down the quality hill to the point where i soldiered through the last one because i’m OCD like that. [it’s a burden. :c] [i’m sorry, i just have a really hard time swallowing a regency england debutante writing a sexy vampiress book that of course becomes all the rage. i mean, really? i know it’s fiction, but…....really…?] [in my little world, “sleepless” is a stand-alone, tbh.]

*grin* but you know, that’s just my opinion, and they’re books with girlfriends who are there for each other and support one another, so…there’s that, which is what was asked for, any you might like them way more than i did.

ack, that should be “this *next* recommendation”...

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 :D

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.

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.

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.

I agree with the recommendations for Nora Roberts boos, especially her Three Sisters Island trilogy.  It’s about three women who are friends and witches so there’s a paranormal aspect.  This also makes the friendships between the women very important to the books. 

Julie Garwood is also very good. 

size65?  Oh my!!

It’s YA, but in the Cat Royal books, she seems to have friends of both genders and many ages. By circumstance, and sometimes choice, she’s frequently isolated, but her friends seem to turn up when she needs them.

In Mary Jo Putney’s Fallen Angels (etc) series, Maggie and Robin are platonic friends, although they were lovers at one point. They both have their own books, but the friendship is showcased in her story “Petals on the Wind”, although it’s also present in “Angel Rogue”. Clare, from Thunder and Roses, also has close friends.

Summer in Sonoma by Robyn Carr. Four strong women who are close friends.

Gotta second the poster who spoke about introversion.  And bitchslap Ebony whoever uptop who said that women with no friends are pathetic.

Look, honeybun—I’ve tried the female friendship thing.  Really, I have.  But women are—get this—annoying.  Like, I want to remove my eyeball with a spork annoying. 

I don’t do malls, or lunch with the ladies, or Tupperware/Pampered Chef/Cookie Lee/Passion Parties.  I don’t watch soap operas.  I don’t watch SATC at all, much less while glued to my phone with my bestie on the other end.  I certainly don’t kiss and tell.  My love life is nobody’s business but my own (and that of the guy I’m dating.)  And when you don’t like to hang out or talk on the phone, most women find that really offensive.  Unlike guys, who really can talk on the phone for five minutes once every six months and still consider each other friends.

I have chosen, therefore, to quit pining for a female friend who doesn’t completely drive me up the wall and who isn’t totally neeeeeeeeedy (Oh, Jesus God, I’m getting stabby thinking about some of my aborted friendships) and who doesn’t require a level of constant connection that I won’t even give to my boyfriend or a child if I had one.

Yes, there are probably women out there who don’t make me want to wrap their heads in duct tape to get them to *shut up*, but just as some women accept the idea that they are happier being single, I’ve accepted the idea that I’m happier without a BFF.  I’m not opposed to the idea, just not looking and very picky.

Now, ladies, I know you are all just itching to tell me what a huge bitch I must be (nope, I’m the world’s nicest person—thus making me into the world’s biggest needy-monster magnet).  How bout all of you look inward and ask yourselves whether or not you actually like your female friends?  Do you really like the ladies in your book clubs?  The girls you’ve known since junior high and still hang out with out of safety and tradition?  Do you come home and bitch to your SO about all the draaaaammmmmaaaaa that your so called friends bring into your lives?  Because if you were really honest with yourselves I think you’ll find you actually agree with me.  And no, that doesn’t make you a terrible person.  Because I’m a pretty damn fine human being.

The first one that popped into my head was “P.S., I Love You” by Cecelia Ahern (although it isn’t so much a traditional romance novel by a long shot.)
The second one I came up with was Julie Garwood’s “The Secret.”
Also, a lot of Susan Elizabeth Phillip’s characters don’t start out with strong friendships, but they develop them within the story (My favorite is ‘Kiss an Angel’)

I’m going to 3rd to recomendation for Gail’s Parasol Protectorate series.

We recently had her speak at Literary Orange and she talked about how annoyed she was about how people view ‘strong females” as women with no friends - and how women need a support network, that’s what makes them strong. (She called these characters “Skinned” - describing them as men who’s pensies have been taken away and given breasts. She also said that “Harry Potter is skinned in the other direction.”) Alexia has a wonderful friendship with Ivy and her terrible hats. When she needs advice on the supernatural she runs to Lord Akeldama. She’s even friends with her werewolf husband’s beta wolf.

@Tinyninja - On one hand, I can agree with you - some women are so airheaded I want to smack them. I hate Sex In The City with a fiery passion. Don’t give a flying fig for Paris fashion. Some of them are so stupid I want to cry. But I miss having a close friend. My best friend, Erin, died in 2005 after a lifetime of battling with cystic fibrosis. She was incredibly smart, down to earth, sweet. I miss her a lot. Haven’t had a close female friend - or even a male friend - since. And I could really use a friend right now. There’s some family things going on that really give me the need for a shoulder to cry on. I don’t have that and I feel - weak and pathetic.

I’m a bit late, but Marian Keyes does great friendships - try The Last Chance Saloon.  The friend circle is as much of a focus as the romance(s).

Maybe someone already mentioned this but I gotta say, Julie Ortolon. Her Perfect Trilogy has a great friendship base. I believe the first one is Almost Perfect.

Goodness, what a lot of anger, Tinyninja.  You have been really unlucky if all the women you have ever known (other than yourself, of course) have turned out to be stupid, ignorant, needy, clinging, nosey, superficial airheads with a regrettably naff taste in entertainment.
I am assuming that you are female.  But whether you are male or female, your characterisation of all women as ‘annoying’ is the kind of stereotyping that most people now regard as unacceptable.  It is also untrue.

I thought there was a really good friendship in Marta Acosta’s series (Happy Hour at Casa Dracula and sequels).

How bout all of you look inward and ask yourselves whether or not you actually like your female friends?

More than like, I love them (in a totally platonic way, of course :). They’re not needy or dramatic, but they’ll always be there for me if I need someone to pick up my kids in an emergency, or if I just want to go see a chick flick. We exercise together, we carpool, we pick things up from the store for each other, and we never forget each others’ birthdays. In fact I’ve never had a male friend or romantic partner who was as consistently supportive as my 3 closest female friends.

I feel the same way Alpha Lyra!

I really like the (few) long term women friends I have. I enjoy the more casual friendships. If I don’t like the women or men I am associating with, I limit the contact to work/group/whatever. I mean, if you don’t like them, they are not friends. I will say that people I truly click with are few and far between but why go for volume over quality.

I also do enjoy reading books that include the friendships, not necessarily in detail, but enough to show that side of the hero/heroine. I do not enjoy the books where the heroine is taken advantage of by someone she doesn’t like but can’t set limits on.

So, in some ways, I know where tinyninja is coming from. I love the friends I do have but am often alone for long periods when I am not working near them and that’s OK for me. Better than a pretend friendship with someone I don’t enjoy.

I do wonder whether Tinyninja’s apparent contempt for women as a sex is based on being forced by circumstances to associate with many women with whom she has little in common.  In the workplace, for example, it is necessary to be on quite close terms with colleagues, without necessarily liking all of them, while in small towns, neighbours may be loosely classed as ‘friends’, simply because you see them often and have known them a long time.  In relatively static rural communities, it is still quite common to know some of the same people all one’s life, from the first day at primary school till death.  This does not happen much in large cities.
Long-term acquaintances of this kind are not necessarily what I would call ‘friends’;  like family, they are simply people who are in one’s life by default.  One can like some of them very much, and others not at all, but they have been wished upon one, not actively chosen.
Friends are those individuals who are actively drawn together because they have many interests and attitudes in common, because they see life in the same way, and have similar strategies for dealing with it.  Their background may be very different from one’s own, but one can be relaxed and natural in their company. 
To me, to describe as a ‘friend’ a person whom one dislikes or despises in the way that Tinyninja so graphically sets out, is a contradiction, a complete misuse of the word.  Friends are by definition people whom one likes, respects and wants to spend time with.

GS vs STA is my favorite segment that Smart Bitches does. Here’s my two cents.

Christie Craig’s
Divorced Desperate series.

Linda Howard’s
Mr. Perfect

Emma Holly’s
Personal Assets

Patricia Cabot’s
Boy Series

Prince Charming by Julie Garwood has an important female friendship in the middle, albeit a fresh new one from after they met the hero.

My women friends are gifts.  Over the years I’ve had a number of friendships based on common interests—work, children, school, judo, band boosting—and though many of those friendships have faded with the associated interests, a few special relationships have survived.  However, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that the value of a friend doesn’t lie in common interests, it lies in the character of the friend.  i don’t have a lot of close friends, but what there is is “cherce.”  As I approach sixty, I’ve learned that the best friendships—the ones based on a shared sense of humor, mutual affection, emotional support, and the ability to pick up an intriguing conversation after six months of silence—are worth all the nurturing and care that you can put into them.

@Tinyninja—I would never say that a woman without friends is pathetic, but I have to wonder why someone with such a blanket contempt for women is hanging about on this website.  Smart Bitches may be virtual, but I would have thought it was firmly rooted in the dynamics of women and their friendships.

I’d like to suggest Madeline Hunter’s Rarest Blooms series. (Ravishing in Red, Sinful in Satin, Provocative in Pearls, soon to be released Dangerous in Diamonds)  Beautifully written with great female relationships.

How bout all of you look inward and ask yourselves whether or not you actually like your female friends? ...  Because if you were really honest with yourselves I think you’ll find you actually agree with me.

Speaking honestly, I love my sisterfriends.

Wow, Tinyninja. I’m really sorry. That sounds truly awful. Other than the crazy resentful bitter tone, your interests sound like they align closely with me and my friends. We don’t do any of those things together. None of us are particularly “girly.”  We speak truths freely, even when they are difficult and drama gets called out quickly. God I don’t know what I would do without them in my life.

I’m wondering if it’s an age thing? Are you young? I can remember friendships being a little tougher for me when I was in my 20’s, but in my mid 30’s they turned rock solid. Now that I’m about to enter my 40’s I am thrilled to have them in my life. Even though I honestly did marry my best friend from high school, boy can these ladies make me laugh and lift me up when I cry.

I hope you can find that at some point in your life. Because it truly does add a whole other dimension to your life. GOOD female friendships are amazing. But, it sounds like you have already decided that the rest of us women (other than yourself, of course, who is apparently perfect and non-dramatic.) are annoying idiots who don’t deserve your time or energy. So, yes. That sounds really lonely to be the sole member of your gender that meets your standards.

...but I have to wonder why someone with such a blanket contempt for women is hanging about on this website.

Pam, I wondered about that, too.  I think that the responses to Tinyninja’s rant have been admirably restrained and thoughtful, considering the offensiveness of the insult.  All of us are accustomed to dealing with sexism in some shape or form, but rarely is it so blatantly expressed these days.

I just finished My Gigolo: The Care and Feeding of a Male Prostitute by Molly Burkhart. The heroine there has a lot of friends, as does the hero—although most friendships cross gender boundaries. The heroine has… one female friend, two male friends, and she’s best friends with her sister (does that count?). The hero has only one, female friend (and others who’re referenced but don’t appear, so they don’t count), but there’s a point made that he feels like he doesn’t have enough friends. I’m still deciding how much I liked the book, but I smiled all the way through it and dropped all my commitments for a day to read it, so that has to say something, right?

...she’s best friends with her sister (does that count?).

It counts.  If one defines ‘friend’ as being someone with whom one shares a bond of mutual affection, a person one trusts, relies upon and enjoys spending time with, then blood relationship actually makes no difference one way or the other.  As I said somewhere above, the mere fact of knowing someone well, seeing them often, and not actively disliking them still does not necessarily make them a friend.

Anyone got any recs for heroines with MALE friends that aren’t gay and who’ve never dated? I have those in real life and it always amazes me that heroines never have guy friends. Am I the only one that thinks that’s weird?

Try Julia Quinn’s Splendid, Dancing at Midnight, and Minx.  The books are a trilogy following three friends: two female cousins (who are the respective heroines of the first two books) and a completely platonic male friend (the hero of the third book).  They’re Quinn’s first three books, and I do think that her talents have matured over the years, but they are still very good.

To me, to describe as a ‘friend’ a person whom one dislikes or despises in the way that Tinyninja so graphically sets out, is a contradiction, a complete misuse of the word.  Friends are by definition people whom one likes, respects and wants to spend time with.

I agree.  Actually, I think that this is a deficiency in the English language—we need a word that implies more than acquaintance, but less than friend.  I recently used the term “Facebook friend” in a conversation, when describing someone I have known for years and with whom I am friends on Facebook, but whom I never really talk or hang out with, and haven’t seen since we had classes together in high school.  I’m hoping to find a better word, for the future.

I have certainly met women like those described by Tinyninja, but I would never call them friends.

I think a woman without close friends(aside from family) in a contempory is odd. Because that’s the way we live now. But for a historical romance, it’s probably more historically accurate if their best friends are their sisters and sisters-in-law. Women did socialize more based on familial ties rather than relationships formed at school or at work, for a lot of reasons (and they still do in non-Western cultures where women are not often in the workplace) #1 bigger family size-you were more likely to have sisters, #2 women did not attend school, if they got any education it was usually at home, and #3 upper class women(who are usually the ones featured in romances) did not have paying jobs outside the home. Think about “Little Women” and the Bronte sisters and Jane Austen’s books-their family members were their closest friends. Mary Balogh’s “Simply” series is unusual because they all have to work for a living. Some good examples of sister friends are Kleypas’s Hathaway series, Balogh’s Huxtable series, Anne Gracie’s “Perfect” series, and the sisters-in-law that become friends in Lauren’s Cynster books.

I would suggest paranormals by Nalini Singh ( in the archangel series the heroine is besties with her boss, in the psy-changeling Sacha and Tamsyn) and GA Aiken

I am going to say Eloisa James’s “Duchess” series, and will second the suggestions for Julie James (loooove!) and the Lisa Kleypas “Wallflowers” series. Those were also the first ones that came into my mind.

I’d like to add that although it’s not a great example of a healthy friendship, Susan Mallery’s “Best of Friends” book features two female best friends whose relationship is strong, if not precisely in a good way. For all of it’s faults (and a large part of the novel is directed at those faults, so it isn’t as if the author was just being lazy), that friendship, for all its slightly toxic undertones, was just as interesting to me as the good friendships that are in the other books by the Jameses and Kleypas. (Also, I loved that the hero in this book wasn’t just another broody, sullen alpha male - don’t get me wrong, those guys are fun, and this hero had his “down” moments, but it was nice to get a different type of guy who knew how to crack a joke without resulting in half a page of shocked reactions from the other characters because it’s so rare.)

All my recs have been said: Jenny Crusie, Julia Quinn, Nora Roberts, Lisa Kleypas, JD Robb, Victoria Dahl, Julie James.

Oh! I did read Simply Irresistable by Jill Shalvis. The heroine begins forming a friendship with her estranged sisters. I quiet liked that book.

I think essentially if they aren’t Toothpaste Friends (always coming through in a tight squeeze) I don’t believe it. Or enjoy it.

@Tinyninja
It’s early and I’m sorta-kinda watching tv, while on the phone to my bff so possibly I’ve got this wrong but wasn’t EbonyMcKenna saying that it was a little “pathetic” for someone to have no friends at all? She was never gender specific. As someone who has a core group of amazing friends I’ll admit that I feel sorry for people who don’t have that. While I’m sure that puts me in the same category as “Smug Married Couples” BUT really I deserve to feel smug considering the aweseomeness of my friends.

Even though there is a good chance the person asking will never see my comment since I’m commenting so late and there is a good chance she’ll find this book anyway if she takes two other commentors’ advice on Victoria Dahl, still, I’m commenting anyway.  The first book I thought of was Dahl’s most recent contemporary “Crazy for Love” where in the opening scene it is two girlfriends getting away from the chaos that is the one friend’s life.  The friendship is a big thing throughout the story.

Given that you like Crusie, ‘Agnes and the Hitman’ has a good female friendship between women who had gone to school together.

I like the Wallflower series, overall I’d give it a B. It’s not groundbreaking and it’s often trite, but given a healthy suspension of disbelief it’s enjoyable. A good summer read to check out from the library. Kleypas writes engaging prose and rarely do I ever get jarred out of the moment in reading. [Being an engineer, the short description of probabilities/statistics in Devil in Winter was painful to read, but again a rarity.]

The only other book that strikes me with it’s female relationships is Slow Hands by Leslie Kelly. In this situation they’re sisters but they have a really close friendly bond which plays a part in the Big Misunderstanding.