Kate & Frida by Kelsey Jaffer

Kate & Frida

A Novel of Friendship, Food, and Books

Kelsey Jaffer, Ines del Castillo, Kim Fay

Penguin Publishing Group · Print & ebook · March 11, 2025

INSTANT USA TODAY BESTSELLER “A highly original, heart-warming story of an extraordinary friendship.” —Amy Poeppel, Award-Winning author of The Sweet Spot A companion to the instant national bestseller Love & Saffron, this bright and comforting novel follows the surprising friendship between two young women in 1990s Seattle and Paris, illuminating the power of books to change our lives.

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Who it’s for
A companionable read for anyone drawn to appetite, intimacy, and grown-up feelings.
Genres
Friendship, 20th-Century Historical Fiction, Women's Fiction
Published
Penguin Publishing Group, March 11, 2025

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For younger readers: Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know, The Peach Rebellion, Let Them Stare

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About this book

INSTANT USA TODAY BESTSELLER “A highly original, heart-warming story of an extraordinary friendship.” —Amy Poeppel, Award-Winning author of The Sweet Spot A companion to the instant national bestseller Love & Saffron, this bright and comforting novel follows the surprising friendship between two young women in 1990s Seattle and Paris, illuminating the power of books to change our lives. Sometimes a book can change your life...

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Twenty-something Frida Rodriguez, daughter of Love & Saffron’s own Joan Bergstrom, comes to Paris in 1991, relishing the city’s butter-soaked cuisine and seeking her future as a war correspondent. But when she writes to a bookshop in Seattle, she receives more than just the book she requests. A friendship begins that will redefine the person she thought she wanted to become. Seattle bookseller Kate Fair is transformed by Frida’s free spirit, spurred to kiss her handsome coworker, to believe in herself as a writer, and to find beauty even in loss. Through the most tumultuous years of their young lives—personally and globally—Kate and Frida’s friendship sustains and nourishes them as they show each other how to overcome self-doubt and the necessity of embracing joy even through our darkest hours. A buoyant, mouth-watering oasis of a novel, Kate & Frida is a love letter to bookshops and booksellers, to the way stories shape how we perceive ourselves, to the passion we bring to life in our twenties, and to the last precious years before the internet changed everything.

Why It Clicks

A companionable read for anyone drawn to appetite, intimacy, and grown-up feelings.

Come here for

  • friendship, food, books
  • warm, serious, with a little edge

Expect

  • book club energy
  • personal, sustained immersion

Where it sits

Friendship61%
20th-Century Historical Fiction56%
Women's Fiction53%

Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.

Publisher categories

  • 20th-Century Historical Fiction
  • Coming-of-Age
  • Friendship
Authors
Kelsey Jaffer, Ines del Castillo, Kim Fay
Publisher
Penguin Publishing Group
Published
March 11, 2025
Format
Print & ebook
Reading lane
20th-Century Historical Fiction