Now and Then Friends

Our Review

Kate Hewitt is a new-to-me author and I enjoyed this story set in England and the countryside around. It is interesting to read the different dialects of the country versus the city.

Rachel Campbell and Claire West had definitely qualified as unlikely friends, but from the moment they were six-years-old, Rachel had fallen into the role of Claire’s protector and looked out for her. After four years of close friendship, their falling out abruptly ended said friendship. Neither girl seemed to know what happened but are faced with painful memories of the past.

Rachel Campbell has never left Hartley-by-the-Sea except for the two months she went to university and then was called home when her mother fell and broke her back. Being bedridden, the mother is unable to keep up her cleaning business, so Rachel takes it over to support her mom and two sisters, Lily and Meghan, along with Meghan’s little boy. Rachel doesn’t like her life, but it is what she has been dealt.

Claire comes back to Hartley-by-the-Sea after sixteen years of traveling and living in Portugal with her fiancé. Claire wants to take control of her own life after being controlled by her parents most of her twenty-eight years.

Rachel is barely keeping her head above water with working twelve hour days while caring for her mother and her sister. Rachel is not sure she is happy to see Claire return to town and her dredging up old hurts from a friendship long over.

Claire’s brother, Andrew, comes back to town to check on his little sister and finds he enjoys Rachel’s company and enlists her help in keeping an eye on Claire when he is away at work. As the two women’s lives continue to intertwine, with each struggling to make their lives better, they realize that they need a friendship only they can give each other.

NOW AND THEN FRIENDS is a tribute to the strength of true friendship and how after multiple years apart the bud is still able to bloom between the two women. Kate Hewitt is a new-to-me author but I love her wit and the way she can tell a story on par with one of my favorite authors, Debbie Macomber. I will be looking for more of Kate Hewitt’s books in the future.