First Friends
First Friends by Marcia Willett
Paperback, 402 pages
Published August 8th 2006 by Thomas Dunne Books
Cass and Kate meet at school--and are firm friends for the rest of their lives. Both marry naval officers, but Cass's infidelity has far-reaching consequences for her children--and Kate's. Many of the characters in "First Friends" (published in the UK as "Those Who Serve")""reappear in later Marcia Willett novels, and we meet their children as well.
As always, Marcia Willett's wise understanding of love, loss, marriage, and parenthood is conveyed with honesty, generosity, and compassion.
About the author
Marcia began her career as a novelist when she was fifty years old. Until then she had been an avid reader and had never considered writing. When her writer husband, Rodney, suggested that she should—she laughed and dismissed the whole thing out of hand. However, after months of nagging she agreed, for the sake of peace and quiet, to see what she could do.
Eventually, she handed Rodney the manuscript of her first novel and said, ‘Right, I’ve written it—now you sell it’. So he did.
Since that first novel Marcia has written twenty more under her own name as well as a number of short stories. She has also written four books under the pseudonym ‘Willa Marsh.’ She is, as you would expect, working on another novel.
Success has not been limited to this country: she is now published in sixteen other countries - with contracts for books to be published in two others - and has been in the bestseller lists of both Germany and Greece.
So how should her books be described?
Marcia is a born storyteller and her books are beautifully written which makes them easy to read. Even so, they will challenge the thoughtful as they deal with the eternal problems that face everyone and often call for great strength of character if they are to be overcome.
A Week in Winter and The Children’s Hour were both selected by Readers Digest for inclusion in their ‘of Love and Life’ series and Marcia won their Magnum award for their most popular writer in 2002. Perhaps the title of that series says it all.
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