The Bilerico Project | Daily experiments in LGBTQ

I love a good novel. And newcomer Kate Jacobs' book The Friday Night Knitting Club has everything I need in a good read: romance, feisty women, and lots of unexpected laughs. The novel centers around the friendships of the women who attend the Friday Night Knitting Club, a group for knitting enthusiasts in New York City. The club starts as an informal gathering of women and quickly grows into true community.

Georgia Walker, the woman who owns the knitting shop where the group meets, is a single-mother who is struggling to run her business and raise her teenage daughter. When her baby daddy suddenly returns to the scene after years of silence, she must navigate a sea of conflicting emotions. And if that weren't enough drama, Georgia's back-stabbing former BFF waltzes back into her life. Just how much can one woman forgive?

There are several other strong women in the book, including Lucie and Darwin. Lucie is a TV producer for a public TV station, and Darwin in a PhD student in Women's Studies. The two develop an unlikely friendship (that I suspect borders on a lesbian romance) when the two of them run into one another at the Planned Parenthood. After swearing to keep it on the down low from the other group members (as if anyone really needs to verbalize that what happens at Planned Parenthood stays at Planned Parenthood), Darwin and Lucie end up becoming very close friends. Darwin even gives up her tirades against knitting (which props up the patriarchy) and tries her hand at a sweater for her estranged husband.

But if you love happy endings, this isn't the book for you. Sure, Jacobs ties all of the story lines together as a good knitter should. However, it's not all sunshine and fluffy bunnies at the end of the book. I won't spoil it for you, because it's totally worth the read. Just be prepared to have a good cry when you're done. OK - it's not nearly as traumatizing as the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, but that's just because we've only known Jacobs' characters for one book, not 7.

If you've got a book group, this would be an excellent choice for your club to read. We read it for mine and I can't wait for our discussion!