The Reader's Shelf ¦ The Ties That Bind: Friendship Fiction, August 2011 

As the season slowly begins to slip away, grab your lounge chair and claim a few more weeks of summer pleasure. Novels of friendship make for fine beach reading, offering as they do captivating tales of forming, and breaking, ties. Here, six well-known authors delight readers with stories of compelling characters caught in the supportive net of friendship. Blood may be thicker than water, but friendship has its own particular viscous properties as well.

Meet Cornelia Brown, a thirtysomething single romantic who loves old movies and manages a café. She thinks she’s met her dream guy in Martin Grace—a Cary Grant look-alike—until she learns that he has been less than forthcoming about his being a father (and a poor one at that). When Martin brings his 11-year-old daughter, Clare, abandoned by her mentally ill mother, to the café to meet Cornelia, he unwittingly sets off an instant and lasting bond between the two. With Love Walked In (Plume: Penguin Group [USA]. 2006. ISBN 9780452287891. pap. $14), Marisa de los Santos gives her readers a heartwarming love story—but not the one they might have expected. She continues Cornelia’s story in Belong to Me,

Best known as the author of Chocolat, Joanne Harris delivers more sumptuous magical realism in Blackberry Wine (Perennial: HarperCollins. 2001. ISBN 9780380815920. pap. $13). Jay ­Mackintosh, the washed-up author of a novel about a long-vanished childhood friend who had taught him about winemaking, gardening, and more than a little bit about life, decides to take drastic measures to overcome his decades-long writer’s block by buying a ramshackle house in France. Armed with six bottles of wine left behind by his friend Joe, he embarks on a new life. With the opening of each bottle, Jay’s passions—for writing, for people, and for a place called home—are reignited with all the tenderness, mystery, and insight readers have come to expect from Harris.

Step back into adolescence with Judy Blume’s Summer Sisters (Bantam. 2003. ISBN 9780385337663. pap. $15). Victoria (“Vix”) Leonard is surprised when Caitlin Somers invites her to spend the summer on Martha’s Vineyard. The girls couldn’t be more different—Caitlin is privileged, beautiful, and impulsive; Vix is shy and cautious. Somehow, however, their friendship grows and solidifies through six summers as they share the drama of their teenage years. In adulthood, they drift apart as Vix takes the path of stability and success, while Caitlin skips college and travels recklessly through Europe. Will Caitlin’s wedding reunite the summer sisters? Blume may just surprise her readers in this intimate and insightful exploration of possibilities, desire, and friendship.

Barbara Kingsolver introduces her readers to a quirky, endearing, and at times tragic cast of characters in The Bean Trees (Perennial: HarperCollins. 1989. ISBN 9780060915544. pap. $13.99). Wanting out of rural Kentucky, Taylor Greer leaves town with no clear destination or plan, and by the time she arrives in Arizona, she is the unintentional foster mother to an abused and abandoned American Indian toddler. Taylor also befriends Lou Ann, a single mother who offers her a place to stay; Mattie, the owner of a car repair shop that also fronts as a haven for South American refugees; and Estevan and Esperanza, illegal immigrants from Guatemala. Despite Kingsolver’s gritty backdrop, readers will likely find her first novel to be heartwarming, humorous, and poignant.

In her typically warm and alluring style, Maeve Binchy charms her readers with an unlikely yet lovable Evening Class (Dell. 1998. ISBN 9780440223207. pap. $7.99). Turned down as headmaster of his school and estranged from his family, Aidan Dunne organizes an evening class in Italian taught by Signora, a captivating Irish woman who has recently returned to Dublin from Sicily after her lover’s death. Signora’s class becomes a comfortable second home to her students, including Lou, whose source of cash is unknown; Bill and Lizzy, an engaged couple who seem to have little in common; Connie, a wealthy woman with a secret; Kathy, a teenage schoolgirl; and Aidan. Friendships blossom throughout the course, culminating with a dynamic class trip to Italy.

Faced with losing her Nantucket, MA, home, Nan Powell, an eccentric 65-year-old widow, turns it into a bed-and-breakfast and is grateful when Daniel, separated from his wife, and Daff, divorced with an angry teenage daughter, become summer boarders. They are joined shortly thereafter by Nan’s son, Michael, who is reeling from a messy affair. Jane Green’s deeply entertaining and richly set The Beach House (Plume: Penguin Group [USA]. 2009. ISBN 9780452295384. pap. $15) will delight readers with its fully realized characters and their growing alliances.