Neighbors (The Real Thing Collection, #6)

by Elizabeth LaBan

Alice and Arthur became as close as siblings to Drew and Luke, who had started calling Elizabeth their “other mom.” I felt beyond proud when her kids did the same for me.

Pop culture, psychology, and the Internet have given birth to an entire cottage industry for dealing with romantic breakups, but the heartache of potentially losing a friend—of losing our person—is discussed publicly far less frequently.

In their hilarious 2015 TED Talk, friendship icons Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin call female friendships “a renewable source of power.”

Roman Catholic nun Sister Joan Chittister, in her book The Friendship of Women, describes female friendship in a way that resonates most for us: it “binds past and present and makes bearable the uncertainty of the future.”