What do you think?
Rate this book
A Line Between Friends
Can a man and a woman remain friends after each marries someone else?
This is the story of a friendship spanning more than twenty years, until the day Noelle Moncada receives a terse, three-line letter from her friend, Joel Rolland, asking her to end all contact. Perplexed and hurt, Noelle recounts the details of her relationship with Joel and tries to determine why he feels the friendship must end. Was it something she did or said? Was it because of his wife, the beautiful Anita Dambra? Or was it because once during a night of passion and release, Noelle and Joel crossed the line between friends? But this is not just Noelle's tale to tell. In alternating chapters, Joel tells his side of the story as well. Ultimately, the reader will decide whether or not Joel and Noelle can or will remain friends.This is author, Michele VanOrt Cozzens' first work of fiction and is the winner of The McKenna Publishing Group Fiction Contest. Her prior books are I'm Living Your Dream Life and The Things I Wish I'd Said.
This is the story of a friendship spanning more than twenty years, until the day Noelle Moncada receives a terse, three-line letter from her friend, Joel Rolland, asking her to end all contact. Perplexed and hurt, Noelle recounts the details of her relationship with Joel and tries to determine why he feels the friendship must end. Was it something she did or said? Was it because of his wife, the beautiful Anita Dambra? Or was it because once during a night of passion and release, Noelle and Joel crossed the line between friends? But this is not just Noelle's tale to tell. In alternating chapters, Joel tells his side of the story as well. Ultimately, the reader will decide whether or not Joel and Noelle can or will remain friends.This is author, Michele VanOrt Cozzens' first work of fiction and is the winner of The McKenna Publishing Group Fiction Contest. Her prior books are I'm Living Your Dream Life and The Things I Wish I'd Said.
244 pages, Paperback
First published August 31, 2006
19 people want to read
About the author
Michele Cozzens
5 books118 followersMichele VanOrt Cozzens is anticipating the release of her sixth book,
How-to Achieve Your Dream Life: Start-up Advice From a Successful Innkeeper
(McKenna Publishing Group). She is the author of
I’m Living Your Dream Life: The Story of a Northwoods Resort Owner, The Things I Wish I’d Said, A Line Between Friends
and
It’s Not Your Mother’s Bridge Club.
(McKenna Publishing Group).
Irish Twins
is her third novel. She is a former newspaper columnist and, along with her husband and two daughters, is the owner/operator of Sandy Point Resort and Disc Golf Ranch in northern Wisconsin, where they spend their summers. The remaining nine months are spent in Tucson, Arizona, where their daughters attend school. She is the co-founder of the non-profit organization HerBeware, which is dedicated to educating the public about the potential dangers of unregulated herbs found in dietary supplements. Profits from book sales have gone to this cause and to Breast Cancer Research.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
November 10, 2008
The Man Who Got Away, March 7, 2008
Anyone who has ever googled an old flame will relate to this book.
Michele Cozzens' A Line Between Friends captures--in heart-wrenching detail--the bittersweet passage of time, the memory of teenage love, and the necessity of growing up and accepting the choices we've made. I found myself cheering for Joel and Noelle, but I also wanted to slap some sense into them. "Look," I felt like shouting, "You're perfect for each other! Wake up! Get it together!" But Joel's and Noelle's family obligations, jobs, and other relationships get in the way, causing them to miss obvious opportunities to express their love for each other. Ultimately, in an ending that's both satisfying and sad, they learn to accept the meaning of their friendship.
Cozzens has sprinkled her very real characters with a healthy dose of charm, and planted them in an era and environment that will strike a chord with anyone who came of age in the late seventies and eighties. I recognized myself and my friends in many of Cozzens' wacky and lovable college kids. At one point, I swear I could smell the marijuana.
Cozzens has a knack for writing about balance and choice. Her memoir-- I'm Living Your Dream Life: The Story of a Northwoods Resort Owner-- reveals the tightwire act performed by women who decide to combine motherhood with a career. Although I'm not considering dragging out the bell-bottom jeans and the bong, A Line Between Friends made me long for a time and place that I miss, just a little, when the doors in my life seem to creak shut. Oh, to go back, to sort it out differently, to take the chances I wish I had taken! Cozzens points out, with skill, humor, and a clever plot, that the road away from true love can sometimes help us discover ourselves.
Anyone who has ever googled an old flame will relate to this book.
Michele Cozzens' A Line Between Friends captures--in heart-wrenching detail--the bittersweet passage of time, the memory of teenage love, and the necessity of growing up and accepting the choices we've made. I found myself cheering for Joel and Noelle, but I also wanted to slap some sense into them. "Look," I felt like shouting, "You're perfect for each other! Wake up! Get it together!" But Joel's and Noelle's family obligations, jobs, and other relationships get in the way, causing them to miss obvious opportunities to express their love for each other. Ultimately, in an ending that's both satisfying and sad, they learn to accept the meaning of their friendship.
Cozzens has sprinkled her very real characters with a healthy dose of charm, and planted them in an era and environment that will strike a chord with anyone who came of age in the late seventies and eighties. I recognized myself and my friends in many of Cozzens' wacky and lovable college kids. At one point, I swear I could smell the marijuana.
Cozzens has a knack for writing about balance and choice. Her memoir-- I'm Living Your Dream Life: The Story of a Northwoods Resort Owner-- reveals the tightwire act performed by women who decide to combine motherhood with a career. Although I'm not considering dragging out the bell-bottom jeans and the bong, A Line Between Friends made me long for a time and place that I miss, just a little, when the doors in my life seem to creak shut. Oh, to go back, to sort it out differently, to take the chances I wish I had taken! Cozzens points out, with skill, humor, and a clever plot, that the road away from true love can sometimes help us discover ourselves.
November 23, 2009
It is a tale of friendship, a story of growing up, and a nostalgic glimpse of the past through the eyes of the present-day characters.
Noelle and Joel were high school and then college friends. Theirs is a relationship of near-misses, bad timing, and immaturity. But for some reason, they each hold onto their friendship, which they describe as like an interrupted sentence.
Then one night, they cross a line. And nothing is ever the same again.
They move onto different pathways, choosing different locales for their adult lives, as well as marital partners. But they pick up the thread of that interrupted sentence in their occasional phone calls and letters.
Looking back and deconstructing their relationship, we come to know the past as it unfolds toward the present in the alternate voices of Noelle and Joel, as they seek to understand the aborted friendship—something that happens when Joel writes a letter to Noelle, cutting off all contact.
It is in the reexamination of this relationship from beginning to end that we come to fully know these characters, and it is this process that strikes a chord of familiarity for the reader. For don't we all have past relationships that we still remember, still cling to in our minds? And understanding them is essential to closure.
That is the final feeling I had in this story—closure. A very satisfying book that almost feels like a memoir, "A Line Between Friends" is unforgettable.
A definite five-star read.
Noelle and Joel were high school and then college friends. Theirs is a relationship of near-misses, bad timing, and immaturity. But for some reason, they each hold onto their friendship, which they describe as like an interrupted sentence.
Then one night, they cross a line. And nothing is ever the same again.
They move onto different pathways, choosing different locales for their adult lives, as well as marital partners. But they pick up the thread of that interrupted sentence in their occasional phone calls and letters.
Looking back and deconstructing their relationship, we come to know the past as it unfolds toward the present in the alternate voices of Noelle and Joel, as they seek to understand the aborted friendship—something that happens when Joel writes a letter to Noelle, cutting off all contact.
It is in the reexamination of this relationship from beginning to end that we come to fully know these characters, and it is this process that strikes a chord of familiarity for the reader. For don't we all have past relationships that we still remember, still cling to in our minds? And understanding them is essential to closure.
That is the final feeling I had in this story—closure. A very satisfying book that almost feels like a memoir, "A Line Between Friends" is unforgettable.
A definite five-star read.
January 30, 2009
I stumbled upon the reviews for this book while looking for another novel. I am glad that I took the time to order it and read it. This is my first time reading anything by this author, but I definitely enjoyed it.
This is the story of Noelle and Joel. It is told in both of their voices which I really liked. I like being able to see what both characters are thinking of the same situation. Noelle and Joel are exploring a relationship, one that started out as friendship, turned into something more and then because of circumstances and timing, kept on going as friendship. They never really get out of one another's systems though and they continue their relationship, a platonic one, through cards and letters. That is until Joel writes Noelle and tells her that they have to stop all contact. Here is where their story begins.
I enjoyed this journey through friendship, love and loss.
This is the story of Noelle and Joel. It is told in both of their voices which I really liked. I like being able to see what both characters are thinking of the same situation. Noelle and Joel are exploring a relationship, one that started out as friendship, turned into something more and then because of circumstances and timing, kept on going as friendship. They never really get out of one another's systems though and they continue their relationship, a platonic one, through cards and letters. That is until Joel writes Noelle and tells her that they have to stop all contact. Here is where their story begins.
I enjoyed this journey through friendship, love and loss.
March 5, 2008
This is a great book. I loved how this young women goes off to college and learns how survive friends, love and grows into herself. I learned a lot about college life and the ties that bind friends together.
August 13, 2009
Choose by Jennifer Reaser
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews