Three novelists explore female friendship in their freshly released debut fictions. Caroline Barron’s Golden Days is set against the backdrop of Auckland’s 90s party scene and explores the fall-out from a late-teens friendship. In Megan Nicol Reed’s One of Those Mothers three longstanding female friendships are threatened by an abhorrent secret. Josie Shapiro’s Everything Is Beautiful and Everything Hurts has two women connecting through long-distance running. They read from their books and chat with me about their inspirations.