The Clover Girls

Emily, Veronica, Liz, and Rachel meet at summer camp in 1985 and form a close friendship, dubbing themselves the Clover Girls. They reunite each summer, making their way from campers to counselors, and their bond endures until a betrayal tears them apart. Years later, Emily has died, and her final wish is for Veronica, Liz, and Rachel, now middle-aged, to reunite at Camp Birchwood to reinvigorate their long-dormant friendship. Veronica is a retired model who lives in a showcase of a home surrounded by her indifferent family; Liz is the sole caregiver for her mother, who has dementia; and Rachel is a right-wing pundit whose bombastic takes on current events have made her a household name. Upon arrival, the women find that Emily didn't intend for this to be a reunion, but rather an opportunity for the friends to heal old wounds, let go of long-standing regrets—and inherit Camp Birchwood, if they can survive a week together. Shipman (The Heirloom Garden, 2020), pseudonym for the writer Wade Rouse, departs from his usual intergenerational formula, though The Clover Girls maintains much of what readers enjoy about his books: the close bonds between women, the light romantic subplots, and the uplifting ending. Nostalgic flashbacks to the women's summer-camp days are interspersed throughout the book, but the focus is clearly on their personal growth as middle-aged adults. Shipman's many fans will devour his latest; it's also a good choice for fans of Jeanne Ray and Mariah Stewart. Copyright 2021 Booklist Reviews.

In the New York Times best-selling Henry's People We Meet on Vacation, vivacious travel writer Poppy once vacationed yearly with straight-and-narrow best friend Alex, but their last vacation left their relationship in shreds, and Poppy must talk him into one last trip so they can right the balance. In Jenoff's The Woman with the Blue Star, 18-year-old Sadie Gault is hiding in the sewers after the liquidation of the Kraków ghetto when she forms a tentative friendship with wealthy Polish girl Ella Stepanek (500,000-copy paperback and 10,000-copy hardcover first printing). In Just Last Night, the latest from the internationally best-selling McFarlane (If I Never Met You), Eve is still crushing on Ed, among their group of four forever best friends, but her questions about what might have been are interrupted by a catastrophe upending all their lives (50,000-copy first printing). Best-selling novelist/memoirist Maynard returns with Count the Ways, which tracks the fate of a family when the parents break up after an accident that permanently injures the youngest child (50,000-copy first printing). Oakley follows up You Were There Too, a LibraryReads pick whose film rights have been sold, with The Invisible Husband of Frick Island, featuring an ambitious young journalist disgruntled about having to cover a fundraiser on Chesapeake Bay's Frick Island until he discovers the townsfolk pretending to hear and see a man who's not there—all for the sake of his widow. Inspired by a real-life individual, Phillips's The Family Law stars a crusading young family lawyer in early 1980s Alabama whose efforts to help women escape abusive marriages brings death threats that eventually endanger a teenager she has befriended. In Shipman's latest, terminally ill Emily wants the lifelong friends she made at summer camp in 1985 to scatter her ashes at the camp, and The Clover Girls find another life-affirming request from her when they oblige (100,000-copy paperback and 10,000-copy hardcover first printing). No plot details yet on Weiner's That Summer, but the setting is sunstruck Cape Cod, and there's a 350,000-copy first printing. Weir's Katharine Parr, The Sixth Wife, tells the story of twice-widowed Katharine, cornered into marriage with Henry VIII and shamelessly used by an old lover after Henry's death.

Elizabeth (Liz), Veronica (V), Emily (Em), and Rachel (Rach) were best friends—the Clover Girls—in the late 1980s, when they spent every summer together at a Camp Birchwood in northern Michigan. Today, 30-plus years later, they are virtual strangers. Their youthful friendship was tainted by an immature undermining of one another, fueled by secrets, jealousies, and hurt feelings. As adults, they couldn't be more different. V is an aging supermodel with a failing marriage; Rach works for misogynistic politicians; and Liz cares for her dying mother and sells homes on Lake Michigan, instead of following her passion for design. When Em dies, the other Clover Girls honor her dying wish that they return to Camp Birchwood to reconnect and revive their beloved camp. That will mean putting aside past and current hurt, confronting the stagnation in their lives, and learning to celebrate their passions and each other. VERDICT Shipman's (The Heirloom Garden) evocative novel is a love letter to Michigan summers, past and present, and to the value of lifelong friendships. A blissful summer read sure to please the author's many fans, and fans of writers like Elin Hilderbrand or Kristin Hannah.—Karen Core, Detroit P.L.