
Kate & Frida
A Novel of Friendship, Food, and Books
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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The Bookshop on the CornerJenny Colgan64% match
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Bread AloneJudith R. Hendricks64% matchShares Women's Fiction
For younger readers: Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know, The Peach Rebellion, Let Them Stare
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Start with this bookAbout 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
| Friendship | 61% |
|---|---|
| 20th-Century Historical Fiction | 56% |
| Women's Fiction | 53% |
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