Advance Praise for Friends and Family

“Tenderness meets tough love in this page-turning story of two friends—one black, one white—who face life-altering choices as a crisis threatens to divide them. This story explores identity, privilege, friendship, and family in an upscale San Francisco setting, but it mines those gray areas that can be found in relationships everywhere. A compelling reminder that it's one thing to be loved, another to feel seen.”—Charmaine Wilkerson, New York Times bestselling author of Black Cake and Good Dirt

“Natalie Baszile lays out the intricacies of prejudice and forgiveness with clarity and empathy. As her protagonists confront the limits of their understanding of race, motherhood, and each other, Baszile explores how we might find grace in today’s turbulent world. This is exactly the kind of book I want to read right now, from a sure voice we know and love.”—Katie Crouch, New York Times bestselling author of Girls and Trucks and Embassy Wife

"Friends and Family is a timely and topical, masterfully layered story chock full of characters who shine on every page. Baszile writes boldly and beautifully about family, betrayal, love, and cross-racial friendships. Everyone in America should read this book."—Bernice L. McFadden, author of Sugar and Firstborn Girls

“This book is an open call to us all to not just stay in our lives, but to fully show up for our lives. It is an honest reckoning with the ways race impacts even our most intimate relationships—with our families, friends, and with ourselves. Over the course of Friends and Family, we see the sometimes blessed often messy journey of a woman who is Black transitioning into a Black Woman.”—Tiphanie Yanique, author of Land of Love and Drowning and Monster in the Middle

“Grab hold of this rare, necessary portrayal of friendship, marriage, sisterhood and parenthood that, with sympathy and grace, tells the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”—Kathryn Ma, author of The Chinese Groove

“An emotional, mental, and spiritual exploration of what friendship means, and that family is not always determined by blood, [with] characters [who] are rich, real and full-bodied. Friends and Family is a gem of a novel that will continue to shine long after the last word is read.”—Donna Hill, author of Nola and Baldwin, and I Am Ayah

"A sharp, emotionally rich story about friendship, loyalty, and the ways love can be tested by race, identity, and politics.”—BET