Kindred Spirits

Once again, a novel that started off in an unremarkable way (not bad, just average) ended as a resounding success. For me, success of a novel generally means it’s so good I cried. But if you avoid sad books, you can still keep reading, for I’m far more likely to be sobbing over the happy sappy “everyone’s going to be okay” ending (think about a typical commercial where a kid from college or a dad in the military comes home as a surprise) as opposed to true sorrow, and that was the case with Kindred Spirits.

Lynne has just lost her battle with cancer (or more accurately, opted out of it), and one of her last wishes is for her best friends to be the one to clear her things. When they are doing so, they find a letter addressed to them where she reveals a secret that none of them knew, though they’ve been friends for over 15 years: When Lynne was a teenager, she had a baby and gave her up for adoption. Lynne wants Carol, Mary Kay and Beth to deliver notes to her estranged mother (who they all thought was dead), her aunt, and most importantly, to find that baby.

So many husbands or children or best friends end up getting killed off in the name of creating a crisis in a novel. Add to that a close-knit group of middle-aged women all facing their own crises and you have a fairly predictable starting point, which is perhaps why the novel seemed somewhat ho-hum at first.

But despite that, I was drawn into each of the women’s stories. Carol is wondering if her decision to leave her marriage and her family for a career was the right one. Mary Kay is mulling over a marriage proposal. Beth is a little run down and tired of always putting the needs of others ahead of her own. It’s the kind of questions that we all have (or at least can relate to because our girlfriends probably have it if we don’t).

If you like women’s fiction about close-knit friends who are out on a caper quest that leads (as they usually do) to a bit of soul-searching of their own, I can definitely recommend Sarah Strohmeyer’s Kindred Spirits. If you like martinis (which I don’t), you’ll like it even more, because martinis were one of the things that brought these friends together. The martini is sort of the 5th friend.

Edited to add a link to this cute video of the author making a chocolate raspberry martini with her best friend.

Jennifer Donovan is thankful for friends with whom she’s shared her secrets. She loves writing about friendship at her Snapshot blog.