A while back I had the privilege of interviewing LDS authors Nancy Anderson, Lael Littke, and Carroll Morris, but it was not until this last week that I read the first book in their series, “The Company of Good Women.” This premiere installment is called “Almost Sisters,” and I enjoyed it so much, I can’t figure out for the life of me what took me so long to get my hands on a copy.
Our story is centered around three women who come to Education Week at Brigham Young University and end up rooming together in the home of a delightful older woman named Gabby. These women are different enough, they aren’t sure if they’re going to get along. First is Erin, a young unmarried woman who has only been a member of the Church for a short time. She’s hoping to learn something at Education Week that will really help her to feel like a member, to give her a direction and a focus as she pursues her discipleship. Juneau is full of dreams and desires that, up until now, have gone unfulfilled and she wants just a little more out of life. Deenie is the ultimate homemaker, mother, seamstress, and cook, and she has come specifically to attend a workshop on how to make yogurt. While these women are all very different, they form a bond over a Guilty Secret – they all love reading romance novels.
After spending a wonderful week attending classes and getting to know each other, the women vow they are going to keep in touch. We go with them as they travel to their homes and start implementing the things they learned at BYU, and as they learn that life just isn’t going to go the way they would like, all the time. As these women encounter difficulties the likes of which they had never anticipated, they lean on each other through phone calls and letters, and even a few reunions over the years. They each grow and change, evolving from the women they were into the women they are now, and their friendship changes as well, but along the way, they learn that the foundation they set is in stone and will never be shaken.
(This book was published in 2006 by Deseret Book.)
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