First published 1983
Sandy adjusts her wedding ring as she watches her friends gather at the local diner. At eighteen, she's already married with a baby, unlike most girls her age in their New Hampshire town. Her closest friends share her situation but not her circumstances. Jill carries her first child, counting down months until delivery. Tara raises her baby without help, her own family having fallen apart years ago. Wanda somehow manages to juggle dating with caring for her three-month-old infant. The four girls find strength in each other, bound together by the fierce devotion they feel for their children. Their quiet routine shifts when two women without children arrive from outside town. These newcomers take special interest in the young mothers, and slowly their lives begin to overlap in unexpected ways. But when disaster strikes their community, everything the girls have built together faces destruction. Their bonds will be tested as they discover what baby love truly means when everything else falls away.
Genres: fiction, family-life, contemporary
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, friendship
Setting: New Hampshire
Period: 21st-century
224 pages · Paperback · Hodder & Stoughton General Division