An ideal gift for a special friend, this collection by the author of "Mama Knows Best" offers a celebration of strength and beauty of friendship, and of the richness of African-American culture. Illustrations.

This essential go-to guide reveals how women can enhance their lives by creating valuable friendships in today’s busy, mobile world, from nationally recognized friendship expert and CEO of GirlFriendCircles.com. Every woman is searching for a happier, healthier, more fulfilling life. Many realize the significant role that an intimate, tightly knit circle of friends plays in creating a more fulfilling life, but with hectic schedules, frequent moves, and life changes, it’s more important than ever for women to establish natural, meaningful friendships that will contribute to their overall wellbeing. In Friendships Don’t Just Happen!, Shasta Nelson, friendship expert and CEO of GirlFriendCircles.com, reveals the most important proven steps, processes, and secrets vital to establishing the five different levels of friendships, or Circles of Connectedness, that women—no matter their age or relationship status—are longing for in today’s stressful and mobile culture. This revolutionary, engaging guide will also benefit women who already feel rooted to fabulous friends, with insightful principles that will help them maintain and enhance their current friendships. Full of practical how-to tips, fun activities, guiding questions, and step-by-step instructions, Friendships Don’t Just Happen! highlights several areas of developing lasting friendships, teaching women how to: Evaluate their current circle of friends Recognize what types of friends they are seeking based on career, interests, location, and relationship status Create a prioritized friendship action plan Find extraordinary friends—where to look and how to approach them Take initiative to jumpstart friendships and face fears of rejection Establish “frientimacy,” trust, and happiness through conversation and activities Maintain meaningful friendships and determine which ones are worthwhile Excerpt from Friendships Don't Just Happen: There is a lie out there that real friendship just happens. When I was new to San Francisco eight years ago, I remember standing at a café window on Polk Street watching a group of women inside, huddled around a table laughing. Like the puppy dog at the pound, I looked through the glass, wishing someone would pick me to be theirs. I had a phone full of far-flung friends’ phone numbers, but I didn’t yet know anyone I could just sit and laugh with in a café. It hit me how very hard the friendship process is. I’m an outgoing, socially comfortable woman with a long line of good friendships behind me. And yet I stood there feeling very lonely. And insecure. And exhausted at just the idea of how far I was from that reality. I knew I couldn’t just walk in there and introduce myself to them. “Hi! You look like fun women, can I join you?” I would have been met with stares of pity. No one wants to seem desperate, even if we are. We don’t have platonic pick-up lines memorized. Flirting for friends seems creepy. Asking for her phone number like we’re going to call her up for a Saturday night date is just plain weird. All the batting of my eyelashes wasn’t going to send the right signals. And so I turned away from the scene of laughter and walked away. No, unfortunately, friendships don’t just happen. We Value Belonging Friendships may not happen automatically, but what we crave about them sure seems to! We all want to belong—that need to be connected to others is an inherent desire. We live our entire lives trying to fit in, be known, attract acceptance, and experience intimacy. We desperately want to have others care about us. This book is about that hunger. And more pointedly, it is about listening to it and learning how to fulfill it.

“There are few things I love more than curling up with a Jenny B. Jones cast of characters. Save the Date was no exception.” —Kristin Billerbeck, author of The Theory of Happily Ever After The only thing scarier than living on the edge is stepping off it. Maggie Montgomery lives a life of adventure. Her job as a cinematographer takes her from one exotic locale to the next. When Maggie's not working, she loves to rappel off cliffs or go skydiving. Nothing frightens her. Nothing, that is, except Ivy, Texas, where a family emergency pulls her back home to a town full of bad memories, painful secrets, and people Maggie left far behind . . . for a reason. Forced to stay longer than she intended, Maggie finds her family a complete mess, including the niece her sister has abandoned. Ten-year-old Riley is struggling in school and out of control at home. The only person who can really handle the pint-sized troublemaker is Conner, the local vet and Ivy's most eligible bachelor. But Conner and Maggie keep butting heads—he’s suspicious of her and, well, she doesn't rely on anyone but herself. As Maggie humorously fumbles her way from one mishap to another, she realizes she's going to need to ask for help from the one person who scares her the most. To save one little girl—and herself—can Maggie let go of her fears and just trust God? “Jenny B. Jones strikes a perfect balance of quirkiness and vulnerability.” —Allison Pittman, author of Stealing Home “Jones’s sassy style is merely one of this romance novelist’s many endearing talents . . . Some subtle faith messages about trusting God despite painful pasts round out this fast-paced, lighthearted romantic escape.” —Publishers Weekly review of Save the Date

Women in Victorian England wore jewelry made from each other's hair and wrote poems celebrating decades of friendship. They pored over magazines that described the dangerous pleasures of corporal punishment. A few had sexual relationships with each other, exchanged rings and vows, willed each other property, and lived together in long-term partnerships described as marriages. But, as Sharon Marcus shows, these women were not seen as gender outlaws. Their desires were fanned by consumer culture, and their friendships and unions were accepted and even encouraged by family, society, and church. Far from being sexless angels defined only by male desires, Victorian women openly enjoyed looking at and even dominating other women. Their friendships helped realize the ideal of companionate love between men and women celebrated by novels, and their unions influenced politicians and social thinkers to reform marriage law. Through a close examination of literature, memoirs, letters, domestic magazines, and political debates, Marcus reveals how relationships between women were a crucial component of femininity. Deeply researched, powerfully argued, and filled with original readings of familiar and surprising sources, Between Women overturns everything we thought we knew about Victorian women and the history of marriage and family life. It offers a new paradigm for theorizing gender and sexuality--not just in the Victorian period, but in our own.

On the surface, thirty-six-year-old Brooke Valentine has a picture-perfect life: a gorgeous. Main Line husband, a precocious pre-teen daughter, a great career in advertising, and a stunning house in Philadelphia's Society Hill. But when her husband cheats on her--again--Brooke is devastated. Reeling from the blow, she takes her daughter and heads to the one place she feels safe: home. Alcott is a beautiful seaside town on the coast of New Hampshire. It's where Brooke and her two best friends, Sara Kemper and Claudia Reynolds, survived the trials and tribulations of high school--and forged a bond that could never be broken. Now, Brooke's marriage is crumbling, homemaker Sara has left her abusive husband, and Claudia--a successful designer--may actually be in love for the first time. Brooke would never have guessed that they'd all end up back in Alcott--and need each other more than ever. With her friends to lean on, Brooke learns to laugh again, to trust again, to love again--and discovers that though life may blow you off course, friendship can help you weather any storm.

Sergio is bisexual, but his only real relationship was with a girl. Lance has always known he was gay, but he’s never had a real boyfriend. When the two of them meet, they have an instant connection—but will it be enough to overcome their differences? Allie’s been in a relationship with a guy for the last two years—but when she meets Kimiko, she can’t get her out of her mind. Does this mean she’s gay? Or bi? Kimiko, falling hard for Allie, is willing to stick around and help Allie figure it out. Boyfriends with Girlfriends is Alex Sanchez at his best, writing with a sensitive hand to portray four very real teens striving to find their places in the world—and with each other.

Once the classiest, most successful madam in New York, Sydney Biddle Barrows has the inside information on what men really want--their favorite fantasies, emotional needs, and specific desires in and out of the bedroom. But she has also discovered what they don't get at home--and what makes them stray. With candor, a little naughtiness, and an insider's eye-opening perspective, the Mayflower Madam teaches you how to keep passion in your relationship, have better sex than you ever thought possible, and make sure the man you love stays committed to you, and you alone.