coming february 2026
Girlfriending
by Susanna Daniel
After a brief, head-spinning affair leaves her heartbroken, a divorced, perimenopausal mother sets out to date ten women in exploration of what she calls her lesbian adolescence, a quest she takes on with the ride-or-die support of her best friend and the small but mighty community she gathers along the way.
From the award-winning author of Stiltsville and Sea Creatures, two beloved novels about the slippery terrain of love and marriage, and inspired by her award-winning short story, “The Goddess of Illicit Choices,” comes a lively and taut exploration of friendship, courtship, community, and all the shades in between. At its heart, Girlfriending asks: How do we remake our lives midstream, and how do we know when we've arrived?
advance praise for girlfriending
“Susanna has written the next All Fours, a novel that is so charming and warm and smart and about friendship and love and middle-age and I want to give it to all my middle-aged friends going through divorces and life reckonings.”
“Once you start reading Susanna Daniel’s engaging story of friendship, heartbreak, and the sweet, full-throated awkwardness of midlife transitions, it’s hard to stop. ‘The Goddess of Illicit Choices’ seamlessly interweaves the romantic travails of two friends — one married and looking; the other divorced and and pining for the woman who recently broke her heart — into a tender, funny, and brave portrait of the silly stumbles, aches, and sublime joys of human intimacy.
“Every character is beautifully and indelibly rendered, and the women’s friendship is the story’s unwavering lodestar. You find yourself rooting for the narrator to get the profound love and connection she wants—only to realize that, at least in a certain way, she already has it and always will.”
“GIRLFRIENDING is not one of those Hemingway-in-Cuba, antiqued bronze, palm-frond ceiling fans from Restoration Hardware, lazily spinning, barely moving the air above a white linen overstuffed couch.
”This book is a beautiful, powerful fan with variable speeds that moves from the side table to the floor after I spill my mocktail laughing, and then laugh more because I spilled it but also because I can’t put the book down.”