Take What You Can (Pre-Order July 7th 2026)

Take What You Can by Naima Coster Pre-Order July 7th 2026

From Naima Coster, the New York Times bestselling author of What’s Mine and Yours, comes a sweeping, emotionally rich novel about friendship, motherhood, class, and the complicated bonds that shape a woman’s life.

Val and Milly first meet in France, two motherless daughters and the only Black students on a study-abroad trip, instantly drawn to one another and to the promise of a different future. They are taken under the wing of Helene, an older woman who offers them money, love, and a vision of possibility — and becomes the third point in a friendship that will define them both.

Now in their thirties, married and pregnant, Milly invites Val to move to New York so they can raise their daughters side by side. But the women they’ve become are no longer so neatly aligned. Milly, a successful influencer married into restaurant royalty, is hungry for independence. Val, a gifted journalist struggling to write her first book, finds herself adrift in her friend’s glossy new world.

As old wounds resurface and long-buried betrayals threaten to erupt, the realities of class, marriage, ambition, and motherhood begin to pull them apart. From Brooklyn brownstones to the sunlit beaches of southern France, their shared history — and the secret at its center — forces them to confront who they were, who they are, and what they are willing to take in order to survive.

Take What You Can is a luminous, searching novel about chosen family, female intimacy, and the price of belonging. With her signature insight and emotional precision, Naima Coster delivers a powerful portrait of love, loyalty, and the fragile promise of lifelong friendship.