Time again for one of the most challenging recommendation features we have: READY, SET, GO!
Here are the rules:
We pick a specific sub-genre, trope, or element of romance, and we have to make ONE recommendation for that type.
And no more than two sentences as to why.
Just One.
And our theme this month?
Friendship in Romance.
What is your favorite friendship in a romance novel?
Your challenge: Name one book that you recommend that fits this type.
JUST ONE! NOT A LIST. ONE. One recommendation.
Any genre, but just one rec!
What romance friendship is your absolute most favorite?
Ready, set, GO!
Sarah: One of my favorite recent romance reads includes many different forms of friendship: Season of Love, by Helena Greer. There are supportive friendships between older women and between them and a younger character, some of which are also within the community of addiction and recovery support.
My favorite of all of them is the very tight friendship between Miriam and Hannah, who are also cousins, which adds some nuance to the amount of teasing.
Claudia: I’m going to go with the friendships between the characters in Mary Balogh’s Survivors’ Club series. We were talking about it the other day as a good representation of disabilities in historicals and they look out for each other throughout the books.
Sarah: Oh, that’s a really lovely recommendation and series. What one book or friendship in particular?
Claudia: Oh right, we have to choose one!!
I’ll go with Only a Kiss, which features the only woman in the “club.”
Elyse: I have to go with the friendship between Luc and Alex and Mitty from Boyfriend Material because it’s hilarious while also incredibly sweet.
Tara: I really enjoyed the friendship between Zinnia and Charmaine in A Spindle Splintered by Alix E. Harrow.
Lara: I don’t have a rec, but I do have a new item on my to do list: pay more attention to the friendships in the romance novels I read.
Amanda: I think One Last Stop might be my choice.
I remember some great themes of found family and community building, especially for characters who struggle with anxiety and isolation.
Ellen: Ooooh, lemme noodle on this.
What about you?
What friendship in romance is the one you love most?
ONE REC. JUST ONE.
Ready, set, go!
There are two sets of friendships in Cate C Wells’ HEAVY that were are astounding to me: the friendship between main character, Dina (on the spectrum) and her childhood friend (probably with fetal alcohol syndrome) and the one between other main character Heavy, the head of a MC (motorcycle club), and his sister, a lawyer. In both friendships, the each member would would do anything (including murder) to protect the other. The histories — and improbabilities — of these relationships were teased out throughout the book, the beginning of a cross-over into the MC series that follows Wells’ HITTING THE WALL.
The female friendships in almost all Kate Canterbary’s books are really well done (although as someone who imbibes very little, the amount of alcohol the ladies sometimes put away is a little eyebrow-raising for me). I think the friendship between the heroines of HARD PRESSED and FAR CRY is one of the best.
I just re-read Sharon Shinn’s Mystic and Rider and series and the six main characters of that series create a wonderful friendship and found family The first book they are thrown together for a mission for the King. There are already a few friend bonds among some individuals but overall they are a mistrustful, prickly group. By the end of the first book they’ve gelled into a team and at least one romance.
It is a delight to watch the different relationships between the six evolve and tighten until by the third book they are legit ride or die for each other. Sometimes literally.
First thing that came to mind was the Will Darling Adventures, the relationships with Will and Maisie, and Kim and Phoebe, and all of them together is just delightful, particularly everything about how it builds over the three books is phenomenal – so I am picking the third one but it is very much not a standalone so that’s probably cheating as you’d have to read all three. Which, if it is I don’t care, as I find “only one” as a concept philosophically inimical, but certainly here there’s all the loyalty & devotion, through good times and really intensely bad, all the banter and bone deep understanding, as well as well-intentioned fuckups and brutal misunderstandings (complete with groveling and redemption) that you usually get in the main love affair, flawlessly woven in to these “secondary” relationships in order to highlight how utterly vital they are.
A Society of Gentlemen centers four gay friends. In A SEDITIOUS AFFAIR, the lover of one of them has been arrested and they spring into action to get him out of jail in spite of having no real p!an to start with, and the fact that the arrested man is a commoner that they don’t like much. The rise is continued with a temporary job organizing a personal library to keep the seditious man safe and somewhat protected from authorities.
Already so many great recs! Is it terrible that a lot of romances with messy friendship breakups came to my mind first? I feel like friendship breakup and drift are a part of life that doesn’t get talked about enough.
But if we’re going for great friendships, I’d have to go with BET ME by Jenny Crusie. Both the hero and heroine have amazing, well defined friendship groups that are very important to the story and the main characters. A lot of the plot is about those two friend groups coming together into a larger, very supportive group that feels almost like something out Shakespearean comedy.
I think Nora Roberts excels at writing female friendship. Blue Dahlia is my favorite out of her Garden trilogy. I love how Stella, Roz, and Hayley develop themselves into family.
I loved many things about Julia Whelan’s THANK YOU FOR LISTENING, but the friendship between the heroine and her best friend is probably the aspect that has stuck with me the most. I love how the best friend has her own important story arc rather than being just an accessory to the heroine’s story. And I loved how important that relationship was to the heroine. And I just loved the book as a whole!
I would have to say Daniel and Ginger’s friendship from IN THE MIDDLE OF SOMEWHERE by Roan Parrish. They genuinely support and love each other, and they also call each other out on their shit, which is the mark of a true friend imho. The way they keep in touch, joke with, question, and encourage each other feels so real, and it’s one of the MANY reasons ITMOS is one of my most favorite romances.
Delilah and Angelique in Julie Ann Long’s Palace of Rogues series immediately comes to mind. The entire series revolves around that friendship.
The heroine of LIBERATING LACEY and her best friend. What I liked is that it’s a friendship that started in childhood and finds them both in their mid-thirties, dealing with marriage, young children, divorce.
The Duchess Deal by Tessa Dare. Heroine finds fun human and feline friendships along the way!
Ha! Mine is a series, so it’s technically 3 books! Fear my workaround skills!
In Olivia Dade’s Spoiler Alert series, you have the friendships of the entire Gods of the Gates cast (the GoT-alike within the universe of the books). You get to see their interactions at cons, outside work interests (two of the characters do a YouTube type travel show when the show ends), and most importantly, the cast chat transcripts are hilarious. The characters support one another, check in on each other when it’s clear someone is having a hard time, vent about how much they want to shank the showrunners, and dunk on the one member of the cast that is a complete douche. It’s so fun to read, and I have hurt myself laughing at some of it.
Ship Wrecked by Olivia Dade is the 3rd book in the Gods of the Gates sequence, but the 1st I read. I adored it & quickly followed up with books 1 & 2. One of the features of the books is the web of relationships among cast members & the support system it provides to them. Buddy relationships are ok, but I’ll take an ensemble every time.
I second Delilah and Angelique in Julie Anne Long’s Palace of Rogues series. She turns a trope one its head and creates a lasting friendship between two characters who would be adversaries in any other book!
Janet and Molly in Pamela Dean’s TAM LIN. Love those two. And actually, I love their friendship with their third roommate, Christina, who is one of those friends who you fall in with through circumstances and find bafflingly irritating at times and would still die for.
I’m re-reading Immortals After Dark. Maybe it’s not EXACTLY friendship (except with Thad), but the interactions(?) between the escapees in Dreams of a Dark Warrior were cute. Particularly when they were giving Declan relationship advice.
Agree on all counts with Sarah F re: ITMOS. I find a lot of unusual friendships in m/m romances. The CHARM OF THE MAGPIES trilogy has a compelling relationship between Lord Crane and his manservant Merrick. Extreme circumstances forced them to forge an ‘us against the world’ alliance that evolved into mutual trust and real devotion.
I love the whole group in “Red, White & Royal Blue”. Of course Alex and June are siblings, but Nora comes in as the third part of their “White House Trio”. When Henry appears on the scene, he brings his friend Pez (he of the excellent and hilarious quips) and his sister Bea along. When the burden of being in the public eye gets too much to bear, they all support each other in whatever way is needed. Oh, and we can’t leave out Zahra, whom Alex dubs his “mean friend”.
Ellen: You could make an argument for Cat Sebastian’s “The Ruin of a Rake”, too, since it has the whole friendship epilogue where you see this lovely group of friends from the Turner trilogy together in a safe place where they can be open about their relationships. Friends/found family are recurring themes in all of her books and I don’t think you can go wrong with any of them.
Daniel and Ginger’s friendship in Roan Parrish’s In the Middle of Somewhere (Daniel’s story) and Small Change (Ginger’s story) is just *chef’s kiss* – perfect balance of support, calling each other out, and snark. (All of her books have great friendships, but Daniel and Ginger are my fave dynamic duo.)
Oh my goodness. There are so many, in fact, I gravitate towards these reads. Ignoring the rules cuz I have been sitting beside my mom in the hospital since just before Christmas and I have zero f’s to give. I first thought of the Wallflowers, the Survivor’s Club, then Eloisa James’ desperate duchesses, and just about every series from Jill Shalvis. Meg Cabot and Julia Kent also write friendships really well. I really enjoyed the friend group in the Olivia Dade series that was mentioned too.
People are writing a lot for one choice and one to two sentences! I choose Sunshine Vikram and her best bud, Quincy, from Darynda Jones’s newest trilogy that starts with A Bad Day for Sunshine.
I forgot the Cider Bar series from Jackie Lau
I’m with Claudia on the Survivors’ Club series. Last year when I read Only Enchanting, I teared up when I read about the hero being eager to see his friends because of the bond they all shared. For context, this was shortly before I traveled to my college reunion to see many of my own longtime friends for the first time since the pandemic began.
“Evie Drake Starts Over” by Linda Holmes. The relationship between the heroine and her best friend is more memorable than that between her and the hero, not that that’s bad. Her bestie is a man, and a lot of people (including Evie at at least one ill-fated momen) think they ought to be romantic. The resulting hurt is worked through not played for laughs.
Ok if there can be only one: THE SECRET by Julie Garwood. The friendship between Judith and Frances Catherine is epic and is the actual catalyst for the book. It’s also my favorite medieval romance ever and is just gorgeous.
I just adored Georgie and Bel’s friendship in Kate Clayborn’s new one, “Georgie, All Along”. The kind of BFF who you can talk to about anything, loves you despite having known you in high school, and who has made it clear to their spouse that the BFF relationship is just as important as the spouse relationship.
Kristen Ashley’s books always have some super true ride-or-die friendships, it’s hard to pick one, but what popped in my head was the one between Krystal and Justice in “Bounty”.
Jayce Ellis writes excellent friendships and queer community in her romances and I want her to get more recognition for it.
But, if I have to choose one book, I’m going to go with The Hanged Man by K.D. Edwards – mm UF with fantastic friendships and community (yes, it is the 2nd in a trilogy and no, it is not stand alone, but the 2nd book is worth reading the 1st for)
I’m with @Vasha, the friendship in Evie Drake Starts Over is the best I’ve read in years.
I wanted to do Jennifer Crusie because her friendships are fantastic (especially Bet Me), but if I absolutely had to pick just one, since I am completely on the mm train these days, my favorite right now is Nico and Wicky in AJ Sherwood’s R’iyah Family Archives series. I am cackling over their absurdity every time they get to work together – double Chaotic Good on an epic level.
Janna MacGregor does a great job of cultivating female friendships in her books.
I am constitutionally unable to choose just one.
The friendships in Jennifer Crusie’s FAST WOMEN are smart and funny and exactly the kind of friendships we could all use in Real Life. This book also has one of my favorite scenes from a romance, where Nell, the heroine, is sitting in a restaurant, looks around the table, and says (to paraphrase), “I just realized that I’ve had sex with everyone at this table except [X, her ex-husband’s new wife]”. In addition to her ex-husband and his new wife, the table includes Gabe (her new romantic interest), Riley (Gabe’s business partner), and Susie (her best friend). The general response is worth the price of the book.
Eloisa James has a lot of good female relationships, sometimes among sisters and sometimes friends. The animal friendships in Kenneth Graham’s THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS aren’t romantic but are lovely examples of caring for friends both when times are good and when friends are foolish.
I like how Rachel Reid incorporates friendships in her Game Changers series. I think the best example might be the third book, Tough Guy. Ryan and Fabian have wonderful friendships that stand on their own apart from the romance plotline, but are also important to the progression of the relationship between Ryan and Fabian.
Currently reading BY A THREAD by Lucy Score. Picked it up on a whim, you know how sometimes you’re reading and your suddenly realized you are absolutely completely happy? This book!! Alley’s childhood friend, her new work friends, Dominic’best friend and his wife and his friends from his old job. It is making me smile so hard.
@TinaNoir, I came here to say the same thing about the Mystic and Rider series!
So instead I’ll say that I love all of the changeling pack bonds in Nalini Singh’s Psy-Changeling series. There are so many close and supportive friendships.
Knitting in the City series by Penny Reid; The Switch by Beth Leary
Absolutely agree with the recommendation for Julie Garwood’s THE SECRET. One of my favorite friendships in a romance.
But since that book has already been mentioned- Lisa Kleypas’s Wallflower series is another of my favorites for friendships. SECRETS OF A SUMMER NIGHT is great at showing the start of that delightful quartet of wallflowers becoming friends and supporting each other throughout each book in the series.
A Society of Gentlemen centers four gay friends. In A SEDITIOUS AFFAIR, the lover of one of them has been arrested and they spring into action to get him out of jail in spite of having no real p!an to start with, and the fact that the arrested man is a commoner that they don’t like much.