Hope Springs

Five good friends help each other cope with life’s challenges in Hope Springs (2003), a novel by American writer and journalist Lynne Hinton. Hope Springs is the second installment in Hinton’s Friendships Blossom in Hope Springs series, following Friendship Cake (2000). In the small North Carolina town of Hope Springs, friends Jessie, Margaret, Louise, Beatrice, and Charlotte face issues of grief, depression, loss, and illness. Together they find comfort in each other’s faith and friendship.

The five women first became friends when they banded together to compile a cookbook to raise money for their small church. Now, they enjoy each other’s friendship so much that they continue to meet monthly, just to catch up. The five women trust each other deeply enough to share their innermost feelings and beliefs.

Jessie Jenkins is the only African American woman in the group. She has recently reunited with her husband, James, who has come back into her life after walking out on her several years ago. Originally content to stay in Hope Springs, now James is restless and wants to move to California. Jessie does not mind the idea of moving but hates the idea of leaving her four friends, even more so than leaving her grandchildren. Louise, especially, is like a sister to her.



Louise Fisher is unmarried. She dearly loved her friend Roxie, who died of Alzheimer’s. Louise nursed Roxie in her final days and is still grieving that loss.

Beatrice Newgarden is a lusty busybody with a good heart. She loved writing their cookbook so much that she started the Hope Springs Garden Club newsletter. Beatrice shares commonsense gardening tips, “Bea’s Botanical Bits,” throughout the novel. Her gardening advice also applies to real-life problems. Beatrice is newly married to her second husband, Dick.

Widower Margaret Peele’s life is going well until her doctor discovers a lump in her breast and further tests confirm she has breast cancer. Initially hesitating to tell her friends, Margaret confides in Charlotte, her pastor. When she does inform the others, they rally around her in support. Margaret undergoes a mastectomy, and later, chemotherapy. The women all shave their heads to show their love and their solidarity with Margaret’s battle against cancer



Charlotte Stewart is the young pastor of the Hope Springs Community Church. Her four friends worry about her. They notice that recently Charlotte seems distant from them and lacking in focus. Charlotte thinks she is just overworked but then realizes that her soul feels empty. She feels ineffectual: unable to help others with sorrow, or to heal or soothe her congregation. This self-knowledge is made clear when Charlotte is unable to comfort Nadine Klenner, a young woman who just made her third suicide attempt.

Wracked with guilt over the death of her young daughter, Brittany, Nadine has no desire to live. She believes she is responsible for her daughter’s death. Nadine did not secure the girl in her car seat and the girl died when they were in a wreck. Nadine has tried overdosing, slitting her wrists, and walking into traffic. An ideal and compliant patient in the hospital’s psychiatric ward, Nadine knows if she is released, she will most likely try to kill herself again.

Charlotte seeks counseling from a professional therapist, Marion Gordon. Marion is large and suffers from rheumatoid arthritis. She is surprised to see Charlotte, and “how old she seemed to be so young.” Charlotte confides that she is losing faith: She is not sure she believes there is a God anymore. Marion shares that gardening is an exercise in faith: you prepare the soil, plant a seed, and wait. But you have nothing to do with creating life or changing the seed into the plant. Marion tells Charlotte that the Black Madonna came to her in a dream, confirming Marion’s faith. Over the course of her therapy, Charlotte learns that she is okay with not understanding everything, and she appreciates the good people and friends in her life.



With help from Walter, an elderly florist who suffers his own losses, Nadine begins to emotionally heal. She realizes that the best way to keep Brittany’s spirit alive is to be involved with all the things Brittany loved and to “love, purely and without complication.” She sees now that her suicide attempts brought shame and sadness to Brittany’s memory.

James recognizes how hard it would be for Jessie to leave her friends, and they decide to stay in Hope Springs, but take a long trip to Africa. Margaret’s final tests come back negative: She is cancer-free. The women go out for ice cream, and the gardens and earth around them “witness the noisy celebration of women well on their way, sowing life.”

Hinton, the author of more than 20 novels, is a retreat leader and an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ.