Tiddas

When you've been friends forever, there are no secrets. But sometimes the truth is the hardest to share.

Five women, best friends for decades, meet once a month to talk about books … and life, love and the jagged bits in between. Dissecting each other’s lives seems the most natural thing in the world – and honesty, no matter how brutal, is something they treasure. Best friends tell each other everything, don’t they? But each woman harbours a complex secret and one weekend, without warning, everything comes unstuck.

Izzy, soon to be the first Black woman with her own television show, has to make a decision that will change everything. Veronica, recently divorced and dedicated to raising the best sons in the world, has forgotten who she is. Xanthe, desperate for a baby, can think of nothing else, even at the expense of her marriage. Nadine, so successful at writing other people’s stories, is determined to blot out her own. Ellen, footloose by choice, begins to question all that she’s fought for.

When their circle begins to fracture and the old childhood ways don’t work anymore, is their sense of sistahood enough to keep it intact? How well do these tiddas really know each other?

Read Caroline Baum's Review

In Anita Heiss' latest, likeable and breezy novel, five women, best friends (Tiddas means friend in northern Koori) for decades, meet to talk about each other's lives at their book group. Romance and career dilemmas, baby yearnings, all get aired and shared with laughter and tears over chai lattes and in between sessions of retail therapy and Bikram yoga.

The lifestyle is upwardly mobile, the setting is urban Brisbane and the woman are justifiably proud of their status, earning power and confidence while never forgetting that their bonds of sisterhood have been passed down through a culture of strong women.