The Last Cookie Exchange

Eight women. Twenty-two years of Christmas Eves. One night that changes everything they thought they knew about each other.Every December, Margaret Holbrook hosts the same cookie exchange she's hosted for twenty-two years - the same eight women, the same table, the same easy, well-worn friendship.This year, she announces, will be the last one.She won't say why.As the wine flows and the old stories get told again, the careful truces this group has kept for decades start to give way. A secret debt comes to light. A son's name gets spoken out loud for the first time in four years. A widow finally admits she's fallen in love again - and is terrified of what that means. And underneath all of it, a misunderstanding eleven years old, quietly shaping every friendship at that table, is finally, gently, brought into the light.By midnight, these eight women will know each other - and themselves - more completely than two decades of Decembers ever let them.THE LAST COOKIE EXCHANGE is a warm, funny, unflinchingly honest novel about the friendships that hold us together, the things we don't say even to the people we love most, and the courage it takes to finally set them down - perfect for readers of The Authenticity Project, Evvie Drake Starts Over, and anyone who believes the best Christmas stories are the ones that don't pretend everything is fine.Pull up a chair. Pour the wine. This is the last exchange.