Common table

Two Gisborne friends go their separate ways after high school - one to Wellington and a busy city life, the other to a rural existence on a North Canterbury farm. After a school reunion six years ago, they rekindle their friendship through their shared love of gardening, writing to each other with humour, compassion and joy. Their first book, Common Ground, celebrated their different gardens and talked about the challenges each woman had faced through past tragedies. This, their eagerly awaited second book, again uses their wonderful, wise, witty and utterly human letters to trace a journey through the seasons of their very different kitchens - one in a small inner city cottage, the other a rambling country kitchen on a busy working high country farm. Their friendship provides sustenance on many levels, and their skilful and complementary writing styles encompass details of their everyday lives. Effortlessly, readers are invited to see how their respective kitchens have become a refuge from life's troubles as well as a wonderful obsession. And each has provided a means by which family and friends are nurtured and nourished by two very wise women, through a challenging year which sees each forced to make significant and life-changing decisions.