Ana is definitely a character in the book…a main character.  She is a strong force, a reliable friend found in despair, a manipulative enemy.  You want to please her, earn her acceptance and admiration.  You want her to go away, forever.
So many compete to be the best for her.  Some search her out, others find [...]

If stability had a name, it would be Melanie.  Always there, offering words of wisdom, a shoulder to cry on or simply a friend to share a few laughs.  She is the constant within her friends’ ever-changing lives.  Yet her strong morals and ethics never affect her ability to love and support her friends.  She [...]

Rachel was a beautiful surprise to me.  You know that Dylan song, “Just Like a Woman”?  Well, that’s Rachel, completely.
To an outsider, she appears unapproachable and tough.  It is a persona she’s cultivated from an early age…a necessary shield that has enabled her to participate in life, albeit reluctantly.  Her three best friends are the [...]

A girl too loud for her own good, usually speaking before thinking.  If she can’t immediately share what’s on her mind, she radiates impatience.  Yet, as excited as she is to express her own thoughts and feelings, she’s even more exuberant when it comes to her friends.   Her emotions mirror their happiness, sadness, excitement, nervousness [...]

What attracted me to Beth was her simple, unruffled background.  Girl next door, no doubt about it.  She’s fresh-faced, sun kissed and pretty much up for anything.  She still embodies the one thing that girls regularly attempt to discard…innocence.  She’s happy with herself, happy with her friends, happy with her life….at least she was anyway.
I [...]

So there has to be a love story, right?  Prince/princess, hero/heroine, good girl/bad boy, etc.  Hmmm…
What about best friends?  What about a boy and a girl that have been friends their entire lives, living across the street from each other since they were babies, but are just now really seeing each other?  That was definitely [...]

Late morning at the end of August.  I dropped my kids off at school, re-heated my half full cup of coffee and began washing dishes.  It was when I was scraping dry, crusted oatmeal off the inside of my husband’s cereal bowl that it came to me.
Four girls.  Four friends.  They’ve known each other since [...]