These Girls Out Here

‘A moving, startlingly funny novel about class, ambition, and the friendships that outlast our messiest selves … Impossible to put down’ Brit BennettA timely, bold and poignant novel about friendship, old secrets and the greatest of predicaments: what do you do when your best friend’s path takes an unthinkable turn?Twenty-five years after they first bonded as freshmen at college, Yoli Gardner Simpson and Shauna Morris are living their New York dream. It’s opening night of Broadway’s buzziest show, created by none other than Yoli’s husband, Tunde, and the two best friends watch ecstatically as they realize they have a hit on their hands. Then a young woman rushes in and disrupts the rapturous applause in an explosive act that leaves Shauna and Yoli shaken and with a thousand questions.In the weeks after, Tunde refuses to mention the incident. Suspicious, Yoli and Shauna can’t help but investigate. Their digging reveals an ugly truth that worsens the deeper they go, one that may ruin Yoli’s perfect-seeming life and their friendship. As the women are forced to confront secrets that go back to one formative summer on Martha’s Vineyard, when their bond was solidified with an unspoken pact of silence, Yoli and Shauna are left to wonder: have they ever actually been friends?When summer kicks into gear and the schism between them seems uncrossable, fate brings them both back to the Vineyard. Amid the sea breezes, dazzling parties, and their most intimate memories, will their friendship get a second chance?From the late 1990s to 2023, These Girls Out Here is a funny, honest, heartbreaking look at fraught legacies, difficult choices, and how far loyalty can stretch before breaking.