From the TBR Pile: Blog Tour: Excerpt #2 from Sisters Like Us by Susan Mallery

We are so excited to be a part of a 2-part tour for the release of Sisters Like Us by #1 New York Times bestselling author Susan Mallery!

Follow along the excerpt tour (links below) beginning in early January, with long excerpts in consecutive order at each tour stop, followed by a review tour beginning on 01/22, release week!

Make sure to come back on January 25 for a review on the book!

Author: Susan Mallery

Publisher: Mira

Date of publication: January 23, 2018

The grass is always greener on your sister’s side of the fence…

Divorce left Harper Szymanski with a name no one can spell, a house she can’t afford and a teenage daughter who’s pulling away. With her fledgling virtual-assistant business, she’s scrambling to maintain her overbearing mother’s ridiculous Susie Homemaker standards and still pay the bills, thanks to clients like Lucas, the annoying playboy cop who claims he hangs around for Harper’s fresh-baked cookies.

Spending half her life in school hasn’t prepared Dr. Stacey Bloom for her most daunting challenge—motherhood. She didn’t inherit the nurturing gene like Harper and is in deep denial that a baby is coming. Worse, her mother will be horrified to learn that Stacey’s husband plans to be a stay-at-home dad…assuming Stacey can first find the courage to tell Mom she’s already six months pregnant.

Separately they may be a mess, but together Harper and Stacey can survive anything—their indomitable mother, overwhelming maternity stores and ex’s weddings. Sisters Like Us is a delightful look at sisters, mothers and daughters in today’s fast-paced world, told with Susan Mallery’s trademark warmth and humor.

Purchase Links

Amazon | Books-A-Million | Barnes & Noble

Enjoy excerpt #2!

“Calm down,” Lucas said mildly. “I was dating younger women long before we met. It’s not you, it’s me.”

“Where have I heard that before?” She glanced pointedly at the clock on her microwave. “Don’t you have crimes to solve?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m going.”

He rose and carried his dishes to the sink. Lucas was about five-ten, nicely muscled with a belly way flatter than hers. He wore jeans, cowboy boots and a long-sleeved shirt. He was a detective with the LAPD, and from what she’d learned about him in the nine months she’d been working for him, he’d always been a cop.

He returned to the table and slipped on his shoulder holster, then grabbed his blazer. “How do you make bunny butt cookies?”

She laughed. “It’s easy. You take a round sugar cookie frosted in pink icing, add two small oval sugar cookies decorated with pink candy for feet, use a miniature marshmallow for the tail and viola—bunny butt cookies.”

“Save me a couple.”

“I promise.” She would put them in a little box that she would decorate for the holiday. Because she simply couldn’t hand someone cookies on a plain paper plate. If she tried, the heavens would open and release a plague of locusts at the very least.

Oh, to be able to buy packaged cookies from the grocery store. Or prepared spaghetti sauce. Or a frozen entrée. But that would never happen because it wasn’t what Harper was supposed to do.

She carried the rest of the dishes over to the sink, packed up the uneaten food, then retreated to her large craft room with its built-in shelves and giant tables and cupboards. After finding a nice bunny-butt-cookie-sized box, she studied her ribbon collection before selecting one that would coordinate. While her glue gun heated, she sorted through her fabric remnants to find one that was Easter appropriate and wondered what other women did with the time they saved by not making every stupid thing by hand.

But Harper was her mother’s daughter and had never been very good at bucking tradition. Her sister, Stacey, was the rebel while Harper did what she was told. It wasn’t that she didn’t like making bunny butt cookies or decoupaging gift boxes, it was that she wanted just a little more in her life. More challenges, more money, more communication with her daughter. And while it was fun to blame all her problems on her mother, Harper couldn’t help thinking that in reality, everything she wanted but didn’t have was very likely her own damn fault.

The smell of waffles and turkey sausage filled the kitchen and drifted down the hall toward the master bedroom. Stacey Bloom slipped on her sleeveless dress, then glanced at herself in the mirror. With the loose style and knit fabric, not to mention her body shape, she looked as she always had. No one would guess, which was the point. She didn’t want the questions that would inevitably be asked—mostly because she didn’t want to be judged for her answers.

She knew that was her problem, no one else’s. The judging thing. If it were any other topic, she would be able to provide a brief but accurate response, one that would explain her position while making it clear that while the questioner might think his opinion was important, she did not. Except for this time.

She stepped into her lace-up hiking boots and tied them, then pulled a blazer from the row of them in her closet. She had learned years ago that having a kind of work uniform kept her mornings simple. She bought her black sleeveless dresses online, three or four of them at a time. Her blazers were of excellent quality and lasted for years. She changed them out seasonally—lighter fabric in summer, heavier in winter—although the temperate climate in Mischief Bay, California meant her decision to switch one for another was based purely on convention and not necessity.

As for the hiking boots, they were comfortable and offered a lot of support. She spent much of her day standing in a lab or walking between labs, so they made practical sense. Her mother kept trying to get her to wear pumps and stockings, neither of which was ever going to happen. The shoes would cause foot pain and pressure on her lower back—these days more so than ever. Besides, something about her hiking boots seemed to intimidate the men she had to work with, and although that had never been her purpose, she wasn’t going to deny she liked the unexpected benefit.

She walked into her kitchen and hung her blazer on the back of her chair. Her husband, Kit, stood at the stove, humming to himself as he turned the sausage. The table was set and there was a bowl of sliced fruit by her place mat. A thermal to-go cup stood next to her backpack. She wanted it to be filled with delicious hot coffee, but knew instead it contained a vegetable-infused protein shake. Without looking she knew that her lunch was already packed in her backpack.

Kit turned and smiled when he saw her.

“Morning, sweetie. How are you feeling?”

“Good. And you?”

“Excellent.” He winked, then went back to his cooking.

As it was the last Friday of Spring Break, he wasn’t teaching today, so instead of his usual khakis and a button-down shirt, he had on sweats and a T-shirt with a drawing of a cat on a poster. Underneath the poster, it said Wanted Dead or Alive: Schrodinger’s Cat.

About Susan Mallery

Susan Mallery is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of books about the relationships that define women’s lives—romance, friendship, family. With compassion and humor, Susan keenly observes how people think and feel, in stories that take readers on an emotional journey. Sometimes heartbreaking, often funny, and always uplifting, Susan’s books have spent more than 200 weeks on the USA Today bestsellers list, thanks to her ever growing legions of fans.

Critics, too, have heaped praise on “the new queen of romantic fiction.” (Walmart) Booklist says, “Romance novels don’t get much better than Mallery’s expert blend of emotional nuance, humor, and superb storytelling,” and RT Book Reviews puts her “in a class by herself!”

Although Susan majored in Accounting, she never worked as an accountant because she was published straight out of college with two books the same month, January of 1992. Sixteen prolific years and seventy-four books later, she hit the New York Times bestsellers list for the first time with Accidentally Yours in 2008. She made many appearances in the Top 10 before (finally) hitting #1 in 2015 with Thrill Me, the twentieth book in her most popular series, the Fool’s Gold romances, and the fourth of five books released that year.

Susan lives in Seattle with her husband, two ragdoll cats, and a tattletale toy poodle. Her heart for animals has led Susan to become an active supporter of the Seattle Humane Society. Animals play a big role in her books, as well, as she believes they’re an integral component to a happy life.

Connect with Susan

Website | Facebook | Twitter

Excerpt Tour:

Tuesday, January 2nd: Romantic Reads and Such

Wednesday, January 3rd: From the TBR Pile

Thursday, January 4th: Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers

Friday, January 5th: Books a la Mode

Monday, January 8th: Bewitched Bookworms

Tuesday, January 9th: Book Reviews and More by Kathy

Wednesday, January 10th: Reading Reality

Thursday, January 11th: The Sassy Bookster

Friday, January 12th: OMG Reads