Episodes

  • Friends & Fiction with Jasmine Guillory
    Apr 25 2025

    On this episode, Mary Kay Andrews & Kristin Harmel welcome New York Times bestselling author Jasmine Guillory to discuss Flirting Lessons, her “sexy-sweet, opposites-attract, friends-to-lovers romance, enriched with found-family vibes…an absolute delight” (Booklist). Jasmine is the NYT-bestselling author of nine novels including Drunk on Love, The Wedding Date, and the Reese's Book Club selection The Proposal. She’s been a Today Show favorite, with 18 appearances (and counting!) to recommend upcoming novels to their TV audience. Jasmine’s work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Cosmopolitan, Bon Appetit, and Time. She joins us from her home in Oakland, California, to discuss her captivating and sizzling new queer romance, Flirting Lessons (Berkley, April 8) which Taylor Jenkins Reid calls “Jasmine Guillory at her best…absolutely one of the most fun rom-coms of the year!”

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    42 mins
  • Friends & Fiction with Jeneva Rose
    Apr 18 2025

    On this episode, the Fab Four—Mary Kay Andrews, Kristin Harmel, Kristy Woodson Harvey—gather to welcome this month’s F&F Featured Author, the multi-million copy New York Times bestselling phenomenon, Jeneva Rose, to discuss our April 2025 Pick of the Month, The Perfect Divorce, the propulsively page-turning and highly-anticipated follow-up to her smash success BookTok sensation, The Perfect Marriage. Jeneva is the NYT and USA Today bestselling author of several novels, including Home Is Where the Bodies Are, You Shouldn't Have Come Here, and One of Us Is Dead. Her breakout thriller, which earned her a loyal and massive fan base, The Perfect Marriage, has sold more than two million copies, been translated into more than two dozen languages, and been optioned for film. The Perfect Divorce (April 15, Blackstone) is an expertly plotted, emotionally charged thriller and fast-paced game of cat-and-mouse, and it delivers what her fans have been begging for—the return of Jeneva’s fan-favorite protagonist, Sarah Morgan. We are so excited that Jeneva is joining us to discuss this red-hot new book before embarking on a major national book tour.

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    54 mins
  • Friends & Fiction with Dolen Perkins-Valdez
    Apr 11 2025

    On this episode, Kristy Woodson Harvey & Ron Block welcome New York Times bestselling author Dolen Perkins-Valdez to discuss her enthralling new novel, HAPPY LAND, in which a woman learns the incredible story of a real-life American Kingdom—and her family’s ties to it. Dolen is the NYT-bestselling author of TAKE MY HAND (2022), which was awarded an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work, a Silver Gavel Award from the American Bar Association, and a Fiction award from the Black Caucus American Library Association, and was long-listed for the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award. A three-time nominee for a United States Artists Fellowship, Dolen is widely considered a preeminent chronicler of American historical life. She joins us to discuss HAPPY LAND (April 8, Berkley) which has been called “exhilarating” by Charmaine Wilkerson and “astonishing” by Jodi Picoult, and which has been named a most anticipated book of 2025 by People, Harper's Bazaar, Reader's Digest, Woman’s World and more!

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    42 mins
  • Friends & Fiction with Nita Prose
    Apr 4 2025

    On this episode, Kristin Harmel & Mary Kay Andrews welcome #1 New York Times bestselling author, Nita Prose, to discuss her latest intriguing and heartwarming installment in her wildly popular Molly the Maid series, THE MAID'S SECRET. Nita is the author of THE MAID, which has sold more than two-million copies worldwide, THE MYSTERY GUEST, and THEN MISTLETOE MYSTERY. A Good Morning America Book Club pick, THE MAID won the Ned Kelly Award for International Crime Fiction, the Fingerprint Award for Debut Novel of the Year, the Anthony Award for Best First Novel, and the Barry Award for Best First Mystery. THE MAID was also an Edgar Award finalist for Best Novel. In THE MAID'S SECRET(April 8, Ballantine Books), Molly’s life is threatened when a daring art heist takes place at the Regency Grand and we wonder who’s out to get her as long-buried secrets are revealed.

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    39 mins
  • Friends & Fiction with Emilia Hart
    Mar 28 2025

    On this episode, Patti Callahan Henry & Kristy Woodson Harvey welcome New York Times bestselling author Emilia Hart to discuss her latest spellbinding novel, The Sirens, about sisters separated by centuries, but bound together by the sea. An Australia native now living in England, Emilia has worked as a lawyer in Sydney and London. She is the author of the runaway NYT-bestselling debut novel, Weyward. She joins us to discuss her highly anticipated second novel, The Sirens. It’s a breathtaking tale of female resilience and the bonds of sisterhood across time and space, which captures the power of dreams, and the mystery and magic of the sea.

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    41 mins
  • Friends & Fiction with Emma Donoghue
    Mar 21 2025

    On this episode, Ron Block and Kristin Harmel welcome internationally bestselling author of contemporary and historical fiction, Emma Donoghue, to discuss her latest book, The Paris Express, a sweeping historical novel about an infamous 1895 railway disaster at the Paris Montparnasse train station. Emma Donoghue is the author of sixteen novels, including the award-winning national bestseller Room, the basis for the Academy Award-winning film of the same name starring Brie Larson. Emma’s fiction has been translated into more than forty languages and she has written the screenplays for her novels Room and The Wonder, and nine stage plays. Her next film is the adaptation of Helen Macdonald’s NYT-bestselling memoir, H Is for Hawk. Emma joins us to discuss The Paris Express which has gotten starred reviews from both Publishers Weekly and Booklist and been named a most anticipated book of the year by the Los Angeles Times and Oprah Daily.

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    40 mins
  • Friends & Ficiton with Patti Callahan Henry
    Mar 14 2025

    On this episode, the full F&F family—Mary Kay Andrews, Kristin Harmel, Kristy Woodson Harvey, plus Ron & Meg—gather with Patti Callahan Henry for a celebration of her new historical novel, The Story She Left Behind. These live launch episodes are always a great time, so you don’t want to miss it. We hear there may even be a reprise of Friends & Fiction Theater! Patti is the New York Times bestselling author of eighteen novels, including The Secret Book of Flora Lea, Surviving Savannah, and Becoming Mrs. Lewis. She has received numerous awards including the Harper Lee Award for Alabama’s Distinguished Writer of the Year and the Alabama Library Association Book of the Year. She joins us to celebrate the launch of her latest which has already been named an IndieNext pick, a LibraryReads pick, one of B&N’s Best Books of March, a Heather’s Pick for Canada’s Indigo bookstore chain, and a SIBA Read This Next pick, among other accolades. With raves from Louise Penny (“brilliant, riveting, so beautifully written, impossible to put down”) and Shelley Read (“a celebration of family, hope, forgiveness, and the tender generosity of abiding love”), we just know The Story She Left Behind is ready to soar and we are so excited to focus an episode around Patti and her captivating new novel tonight before she embarks on her massive book tour.

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    1 hr and 11 mins
  • Friends & Fiction with Colleen Oakley
    Mar 7 2025

    On this episode, Kristin Harmel & Mary Kay Andrews welcome bestselling author Colleen Oakley to discuss her new novel, Jane and Dan at the End of the World, a hilariously insightful take on midlife and marriage in which date night goes off the rails when one unhappy couple find themselves at the heart of a crime in progress. Colleen Oakley is the USA Today bestselling author of six novels including The Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise and The Invisible Husband of Frick Island. Her books have been translated into more than twenty languages, have been optioned for film, and have won multiple awards including Georgia Author of the Year and the French Reader’s Prize. A former magazine editor for Women’s Health & Fitness and Marie Claire, Colleen’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, Ladies’ Home Journal, Redbook, Parade, and Woman’s Day. She joins us from her home in Atlanta to discuss Jane and Dan at the End of the World, about which People magazine says, “this sharply original romp is entirely too much fun.”

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    41 mins
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