That’s What Friends Are For

By Wade Rouse

Deal Ends: Fri 10th July

A NATIONAL BESTSELLER!USA TODAY bestseller • Today Show Best Feel Good Read • Bookbub Best New Fiction • A Most Anticipated Book of 2026 by Zibby Media • US Weekly Best Romance • Featured on People.com, Newsweek.com and CBS-NY/Club Calvi Book Club"By turns hilarious, tender, and devastating, Rouse’s novel explores what it means to be the sandwich generation of gays today — caught between those who paved the way for equality, those who are too young to credit them, and a world that seems increasingly hostile." —Jodi Picoult, #1 New York Times bestselling authorIn this poignant and hilarious story inspired by TV’s beloved The Golden Girls, bestselling author Wade Rouse celebrates love, aging, finding your people, and the art of impeccably timed one-liners.Theodore Copeland has created a fabulous life in the desert oasis of Palm Springs, where he shares a fabulous pink mid-century home with three fabulous friends: Barry, a former actor still clinging to his youth, his hair, and the memory of the dream role that killed his career; Ron, an uprooted Christian from the Midwest with a big heart but no one to give it to; Sid, who, after coming out late in life, has never found love. Teddy is the caustic, unspoken leader of “The Golden Gays”—the foursome’s monthly drag tribute to The Golden Girls. Despite their foibles and bickering, they have turned their golden years into a golden era.But the harmony of their desert enclave becomes a carousel of emotional baggage when Teddy’s estranged sister, Trudy, shows up on their doorstep, her dramatic teenage granddaughter in tow. While Teddy tries to keep Trudy at arm’s length, she manages to wheedle her way into the lives of the Golden Gays, until the real reason for her visit is revealed and the secrets they’ve all been keeping from each other unravel faster than a hastily stitched hemline.A novel that gives thanks to “old” friends, That's What Friends Are For proves that while family may be the tie that binds, it’s the chosen family that truly keeps us together. Review "By turns hilarious, tender, and devastating, Rouse’s novel explores what it means to be the sandwich generation of gays today — caught between those who paved the way for equality, those who are too young to credit them, and a world that seems increasingly hostile again. I loved this ode to the family we find, the family we reinvent, and the support systems we lean on to find our authentic selves.” —Jodi Picoult, #1 New York Times bestselling author"Wade Rouse has written the most unabashedly joyful novel you'll read this year, a rip-roaringly funny ode to found family, Palm Springs, drag, and Bea Arthur. But beneath all the wigs and the California sunshine, That’s What Friends are For is also a poignant study of survival--of what it means to persevere in a world hell-bent on bringing you down, and a celebration of the friends who always have our backs." —Grant Ginder, author of The People We Hate at the Wedding“Fans of The Golden Girls will love this book inspired by the show, about friendship and aging in style. It's hilarious, I laughed out loud....it's a great book."—#1 New York Times bestselling author Kwame Alexander on Today.com"Full of heart, humor, and friendship, That’s What Friends Are For is the perfect cozy gift to make you laugh, cry, and fall in love with your chosen family. Think The Golden Girls meets four gay men and Palm Springs fabulousness. Wade Rouse is quick-witted and heartfelt with every last word. You’re going to love this read, so buy one for a gift and the other to read, stat."-- Emma Sutton-Williams, New York Post"An affectionate queer homage to The Golden Girls that reads like a sitcom, complete with broad characters, amusing zingers, and poignant life lessons....Rouse delivers both humor and heart as he emphasizes that “being a friend is the role of a lifetime.” The result is equally breezy and heartfelt."--Publishers Weekly "This story will surely stick with me for a long while. Wade Rouse's writing is both laugh-out-loud funny and deeply moving. It was warm and tender, but so incredibly profound and heartbreaking at times too! I feel like I experienced the full range of emotions reading this book, and I soaked up every word of it.”—Anneliese Judge, actor (Sweet Magnolias) and founder of the ‘who to judge?’ book club About the Author Wade Rouse is an internationally bestselling author of thirteen books, which have been translated into twenty languages and selected as Today Show Must-Reads, Indie Next Picks and Michigan Notable Books. Rouse writes fiction under his grandma’s name, Viola Shipman, to honor the working-poor Ozarks woman whose memory inspires his writing. He lives in Michigan and California, and hosts Wine & Words with Wade, a literary happy hour, every Thursday.