Blog Tour Promo Post: The Lipstick Bureau by Michelle Gable

“A gripping, fascinating read.” —Kelly Rimmer, New York Times bestselling author of The Warsaw Orphan

Inspired by one of the OSS’s few female operatives, Barbara Lauwers, a WWII novel set at OSS’s Morale Office in Rome, which was responsible for creating black propaganda and distributing it behind enemy lines. From the New York Times bestselling author of The Bookseller's Secret.

Inspired by a real-life female spy, a WWII-set novel about a woman challenging convention and boundaries to help win a war, no matter the cost.

1944, Rome. Newlywed Niki Novotná is recruited by a new American spy agency to establish a secret branch in Italy's capital. One of the OSS's few female operatives abroad and multilingual, she's tasked with crafting fake stories and distributing propaganda to lower the morale of enemy soldiers.

Despite limited resources, Niki and a scrappy team of artists, forgers and others—now nicknamed The Lipstick Bureau—find success, forming a bond amid the cobblestoned streets and storied villas of the newly liberated city. But her work is also a way to escape devastating truths about the family she left behind in Czechoslovakia and a future with her controlling American husband.

As the war drags on and the pressure intensifies, Niki begins to question the rules she's been instructed to follow, and a colleague unexpectedly captures her heart. But one step out of line, one mistake, could mean life or death…

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NIKI

May 1989

Washington, DC

Niki’s stomach flip-flops, and there’s a wild fluttering in her chest. You’re fine, she tells herself. In this buzzing, glittering room of some three hundred, she’s unlikely to encounter anyone she knows. Not that she’d recognize them if she did. It’s been almost forty-five years.

“Jeez, what a turnout,” her daughter, Andrea, says as Niki takes several short inhales, trying to wrangle her breath. “Did you know this many people would show up?”

“I had no idea what to expect,” Niki answers, and this much is true. When the invitation arrived three months ago, she’d almost pitched it straight into the trash.

You are invited

to a Black-Tie Dinner

Honoring

The Ladies of the O.S.S.

The ladies of the OSS. A deceptively quaint title, like a neighborhood bridge club, or a collection of wives whose given names are not important.

“You should go,” Niki’s husband had said when she showed him the thick, ecru cardstock with its ornate engraving. “Relive your war days.”

“Manfred,” Niki had replied sternly. “Nobody wants to relive those.”

Though he’d convinced Niki to accept the invitation, it hadn’t been the hardest sell. Manfred was ill—dying, in fact, of latestage lung cancer—and Niki figured the tick mark beside “yes” was merely a way to delay a no.

The week before the event, Manfred was weaker than ever, and Niki saw her chance to back out. “I’ll just skip it,” she’d said. “This is for the best. You’d be bored out of your skull, and no one I worked with will even be there!”

“Zuska,” Manfred said, using her old pet name. As always, he’d known what his wife was up to. “I want you to go. Take Andrea. She could use a night out. It’d be like a holiday for her.”

“I don’t know…” Niki demurred. Their daughter did hate to cook, and no doubt longed for a break from her two extremely pert teenagers.

“You can’t refuse,” Manfred said. “What if this ends up qualifying as my dying wish?” It was a joke, but what could Niki possibly say to that?

Now she regrets having shown Manfred the invitation and is discomfited by the scene. Niki feels naked, exposed, as though she’s wearing a transparent blouse instead of a black sparkly top with double shoulder pads.

“Do you think you’ll spot anyone you know?” Andrea asks as they wend their way through the tables, scanning for number eighteen. Every Czech native considers eighteen an auspicious number, so maybe this is a positive sign.

“It’s unlikely,” Niki says. “The dinner is honoring women, and I mostly worked with men.” Most of whom are now dead, she does not add.

Soon enough, mother and daughter find their table, and exchange greetings with the two women already seated. Niki squints at their badges and notes they worked in different theaters of operation. Onstage is a podium, behind it a screen emblazoned with O.S.S. Beneath the letters is a gold spade encircled in black.

“What a beautiful outfit!” says one of their tablemates in a tight Texas twang.

“Thank you.” Niki blushes lightly, smoothing her billowy, bright green chiffon skirt.

“You’re the prettiest one in the place,” Andrea whispers as they sit.

“What a load of shit,” Niki spits back. In this room, it’s sequins and diamonds and fur for miles. She pats Andrea’s hand. “But thank you for the compliment.” And thank God for Manfred, who’d raised their girl to treat her mother so well.

Manfred. Niki feels a quake somewhere deep. She is losing him. She’s been losing him for a long time, and maybe this is the reason she came tonight. Those three letters on-screen call up—rather, exhume—a swarm of emotions, not all of them good. But they also offer a strange kind of hope, a reminder that Niki’s survived loss before, and this old body of hers has lived more than one life.


Excerpted from The Lipstick Bureau by Michelle Gable Bilski. Copyright © 2022 by Michelle Gable Bilski. Published by Graydon House Books.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Photo Credit: Joanna DeGeneres

MICHELLE GABLE is the New York Times bestselling author of A Paris Apartment, I'll See You in Paris, The Book of Summer, and The Summer I Met Jack. She attended the College of William & Mary and spent twenty years working in finance before becoming a full-time writer. She grew up in San Diego and lives in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California. Find her on Instagram, Twitter, or Pinterest, @mgablewriter.

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HTP Fall Reads Blog Tour (Mystery & Thriller Edition) Promo Post: Someone Had to Do It by Amber Brown and Danielle Brown

It’s the perfect crime…until the accused fights back.

Brandi Maxwell is living the dream as an intern at prestigious New York fashion house Simon Van Doren. Except “living the dream” looks more like scrubbing puke from couture dresses worn by hard-partying models and putting up with microaggressions from her white colleagues. Still, she can’t help but fangirl over Simon’s it-girl daughter, Taylor. Until one night, at a glamorous Van Doren party, when Brandi overhears something she shouldn’t have, and her fate becomes dangerously intertwined Taylor’s.

 

Model and influencer Taylor Van Doren has everything…and is this close to losing it all. Her fashion mogul father will donate her inheritance to charity if she fails her next drug test, and he’s about to marry someone nearly as young as Taylor, further threatening her stake in the family fortune. But Taylor deserves the money that’s rightfully hers. And she’ll go to any lengths to get it, even if that means sacrificing her famous father in the process.

 

All she needs is the perfect person to take the fall…

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BRANDI

I had a ton of illusions, vivid fantasies of what it would be like to score a coveted internship at Van Doren. Deluded old me thought I would be strutting around the stunning tri-story headquarters in single-soled heels, flitting from design concept meetings to on-location photo shoots, living my best fashion-girl life. Instead, I’m in the back corner of the two-thousand-square-foot ready-to-wear samples closet scrubbing fresh vomit from a slinky gown worth double my rent during my lunch hour.

Italian Vogue’s current cover girl borrowed the hand-sewn dress for a red-carpet event last night, and apparently getting it back on a rack without ruining it was too much for one of the other interns to handle. She was so hungover when she came to the office this morning that she vomited all over the dress before making it out of the elevator. But of course this dress needs to be ready for another model to wear to some big extravaganza tonight, and since I’m the designated fuckover intern, I have to clean it by hand because the satin-blend fabric is too delicate to be dry-cleaned.

This is what it takes.

I chant this to remind myself why I’m here as the lactic acid builds up in my biceps. Working for Van Doren has been on my proverbial vision board ever since I reluctantly gave up the idea, in middle school, that I could be Beyoncé. It’s a storm of hauling hundreds of pounds of runway samples around the city and sitting in on meetings with the sketch artists. A glorious, next-to-holy experience when I’m on duty at photo shoots and one of the stylists sends me to fetch another blazer, not a specific blazer, which means I get to use my own vestiary inclinations to make the selection. Which has only happened once, but still.

Just as I get the stain faded by at least seventy percent, I hear the sharp staccato of someone in stilettos approaching. I turn around and see Lexi. Lexi with her bimonthly touched-up white-blond hair and generous lip filler that she’ll never admit to having injected. When she steps closer in her head-to-toe Reformation, I am grateful that I remembered to put on a few sprays of my Gypsy Water perfume. The one that smells like rich people. But the way she’s staring at me right now, it’s clear that no matter how much I try, I am still not on her level. I do not fit in here. She does not see me as her equal, despite the fact that we are both unpaid, unknown, disposable interns. It’s become glaringly obvious that at Van Doren, it’s not actually about what you contribute, but more about how blue your blood is. Lexi doesn’t even know my name, though I’ve been here a solid nine weeks and I’m pretty sure I’ve told her at least a dozen times.

I’m already on edge because of my assignment, so I jump in before she can ask in her monotone voice. “Brandi.”

“Right,” she says, like she does every time yet still forgets. “Chloé wants the Instagram analytics report for last week. She said she asked you to put it together an hour ago.”

Which is true, but completely unfair since Jenna from marketing also asked me to run to Starbucks to buy thirty-one-ounce cups of liquid crack for her and her entire department for a 9:00 a.m. meeting, an effort that took three trips total, and technically I’m still working on the data sheets I promised Eric from product development. Not to mention the obvious: getting rid of the puke from the dress.

“I’m still working on it,” I tell her.

Lexi stares at me, her overly filled brows lifted, as if she’s waiting for the rest of my excuse. I understand her, but also I’m wondering how she still hasn’t realized this is not a case of Resting Bitch Face I have going on, that I am actually intolerant of her nagging.

Normally, I am not this terse. But nothing about today has been normal. Since this week is my period week, I’m retaining water in the most unflattering of places and the pencil dress I’m wearing has been cutting off the circulation in my thighs for the past couple of hours, and being that I’ve spent most of my break destroying the evidence of someone else’s bad decisions, it is not my fault that I’m not handling this particularly well.

“I’ll send it over as soon as I’m done,” I say to Lexi so she can leave. But she doesn’t.

“HR wants to see you,” she says with what looks like a smirk.

My mouth opens. I have no idea what HR could want, and although I’m still new to this employee thing, I know this can’t be good.

“Like, now,” Lexi barks and pivots away in her strappy, open-toe stilts.

I hang the sample next to the door, and before I leave the room I pause to briefly take in the rest of the dresses stuffed on the racks, each one in that chic, elevated aesthetic that is the cornerstone of Van Doren. This is my favorite part of the day, the chaotic nature of this room a little overwhelming but also inspiring, and I can’t wait for the day that this is my world, not just one I’m peeking my head into. A world in which I command respect.

I cross through the merchandising department, where everyone has their own private office with aerial views of Hell’s Kitchen, Soho and the Garment District, and then move through the maze of the sprawling suite in a mild sort of panic until I remind myself that I have done nothing wrong. Ever since spring semester ended, I’ve been putting in more hours than the sun. I slip in at six-thirty when the building is dark and vaguely ominous, my eyes still puffy with sleep, and when I finally drag myself into the elevator at the end of the day, it’s just as black and quiet outside. I religiously show up in current-season heels despite the blisters, albeit mass-produced renditions of the Fendi, Balenciaga and Bottega Venetas the other summer interns casually strut around in, and mostly stick to myself. I am careful about raising my voice, even if I vehemently disagree with my neurotic supervisor. I keep my tongue as puritanical as a nun’s, even when fucking incel or coddled narcissistic bitch are on the tip of it. I’m not rude or combative. I stay away from gossip. I complete all my tasks with time to spare, which is usually when I check Twitter and help out some of the other interns, even though I’d rather FaceTime Nate in the upstairs bathroom with the magical lighting. I even entertain the gang of sartorially inclined Amy Coopers in the making who insist on obnoxiously complaining to me about all of their first-world, one-percenter problems. I’ve done nothing but consistently given them reasons to think I am a capable, qualified, talented intern who would make an exceptional employee.

I have nothing to worry about.

When I knock on the door to Lauren’s office, she looks up from her desk and waves me in through the glass. I have a feeling this will not go my way when I see that my supervisor, Chloé, one of the more amiable assistants, is also here, fiddling with her six-carat engagement ring in the corner and avoiding eye contact.

“Have a seat, Brandi,” Lauren says, and I tell myself to ignore that her bright pink lipstick extends above her lip on one side.

There is no small talk. No hello or how’s it going? Under alternate circumstances, I would feel slighted, but because I’m growing more anxious by the second, I’m grateful for her smugness.

As I sit down, Chloé shifts in her chair, and I speak before she can. “I’m sorry. The Instagram report is at the top of my task list. I’ll definitely have it to you before I leave today. I just—”

“That’s not why you’re here, Brandi,” Lauren interjects.

“Oh.” I pause, and as she glances down at her notes, I try to make meaningful eye contact with my supervisor, but she is still actively dodging my eyes.

Lauren begins by throwing out a few compliments. My work ethic is admirable and I have great attention to detail, she says, and the whole time my heart is pounding so loud, I can barely make out most of her words. Chloé jumps in to effusively agree, then Lauren finally stops beating around the bush and looks me directly in the eyes.

“We just don’t feel like you’re fitting into the culture here at Van Doren.”

Every word feels like a backhanded slap across the face, the kind that twists your neck and makes the world go still and white for a few disconcerting moments, like an orgasm but not like an orgasm. It’s obvious what they mean, yet can’t quite bring themselves to say.

They just don’t like that I’m black.

They don’t like the way I wear my braids—long and unapologetic, grazing my hips like a Nubian mermaid.

They don’t like that I’m not the smile-and-nod type, willing to assimilate to their idea of what I should be, how I should act.

Culture.

That’s their code for we-can’t-handle-your-individuality-but-since-we-don’t-want-to-seem-racist-we’ll-invent-this-little-loophole.

Black plus exceptional equals threat.

“If we don’t see any improvement in the coming weeks, we’re going to have to let you go,” Lauren says with no irony, her mouth easing into a synthetic smile.

I blink. I cannot believe this is happening right now. It wasn’t supposed to go like this, my internship at Van Doren, the one fashion company whose ethics align with mine. I wasn’t just blowing smoke up Lauren’s ass when I interviewed for this job, though I was looking at her sideways, wondering why she had not a stitch of Van Doren on. I’d splurged on a single-shouldered jumpsuit from this year’s spring collection that I couldn’t really afford just to impress her, while she hadn’t even felt the need to represent the brand at all as she shot out all those futile questions interviewers love propelling at candidates, I’m convinced, just to see them squirm. Even minuscule amounts of power can be dangerous.

This is bullshit, being put on probation, and I’d give anything to have the balls to call them on it. As I sit here paralyzed, Lauren’s words reverberate in my head and I rebuke them, want to suffocate and bury them.

About Amber and Danielle Brown

Photo Credit: Deidhra Fahey Photography

Amber and Danielle Brown both graduated from Rider University where they studied Communications/Journalism and sat on the editorial staff for the On Fire!! literary journal. They then pursued a career in fashion and spent five years in NYC working their way up, eventually managing their own popular fashion and lifestyle blog. Amber is also a screenwriter, so they live in LA, which works out perfectly so Danielle can spoil her plant babies with copious amount of sunshine.

Our debut novel with Graydon House, SOMEONE HAD TO DO IT, is available for preorder now.

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HTP Fall Reads Blog Tour (Mystery & Thriller Edition) Promo Post: A Small Affair by Flora Collins

A twisting novel of psychological suspense about a young woman whose life is torn apart when her wealthy ex-lover is found dead, along with his wife.

Vera is ruthlessly ambitious, beautiful by her own account, and knows how to get exactly what she wants--no matter who stands in the way. When she starts a relationship with a wealthy older man who tells her he’s separated from his wife, she thinks litte of it. After only a few dates, she ends things, but that’s only the beginning. Days later, the man and his wife are found dead in their home, leaving behind a note saying Vera’s rejection had driven him to the horrible act of violence.

Vera is immediately blamed for the couple’s deaths, demonized by the press, fired from her job, and when stalkers and paparazzi begin to haunt her apartment, she flees to her mother’s house upstate. A year later, emerging from a cocoon of self-pity, she tries to re-enter the world, to get her job back—or any job—but the specter of scandal still clings to her. Then she’s invited to a memorial for the wife of the man she had an affair with. As she learns more about the family, and about the couple and their friends, she begins to suspect there was much more to the story than a simple affair gone wrong. In a quest for redemption, Vera soon begins uncovering layers of lies and close-kept secrets held by an inner-circle of filthy rich tech millionaires who will go to any lengths to protect their reputations.

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1

One year ago

We met on an app, one of those achingly boring, exclusive ones. White text on a black background. Where you have to work in a certain industry, have a certain type of education, a pedigree to differentiate yourself from the riffraff.

Oddly, or perhaps not oddly at all, I remember the exact moment we matched. I was on my couch under a heavy knit green blanket, my legs splayed across my best friend and roommate’s legs. We were watching Real Housewives—though which franchise, I can’t recall—ignoring each other, ignoring the TV. Classic millennials on our phones, doom scrolling.

I wish with all my might I could do that again. Sit next to Quinn on that olive green couch we’d found in a West Village Housing Works and ignore each other without these ghosts separating us, sitting on my chest. Incapacitating me. Incapacitating all my relationships.

“Ugh, can you move your legs? Mine are asleep,” Quinn whined, throwing his end of the blanket in my face and getting up on unsteady feet, stretching. He padded across to our small kitchen and took out a beer, watched me on my phone, my face lit by the glare of the TV.

I looked up. “Want to help? I’m back on the apps.” Quinn set his beer down and clapped his hands. Quinn didn’t date much. He’d been on and off with his partner, Sam, for seven years now, since we were sophomores in college. Right then they were off, had been off for the past six months or so. I knew it would only be so long until they got back together; they rarely dated other people. It was like they were actually meant for each other.

But he loved to live vicariously through me. Loved to vet and interrogate all the guys who had come home with me over the years, commenting on their clothes, their hair, their smell, to their faces, forcing me to tell every minute detail about the sex, the morning after, whether they snuggled me up close at night. Whether they followed my instructions in bed, asked what I wanted, needed.

So I wasn’t surprised when he plopped back down on the couch, grabbed my phone away from me and began to swipe.

“All these people have liked you?” he asked, eyes roving over the screen. I nodded. “Damn, Vera, you haven’t been on this app in ages, have you? You have like fifty likes.” I nodded again. I hadn’t gone out with anyone in a few months, mostly because of new responsibilities at work. It wasn’t even like I felt incapacitated by those responsibilities; I just had no wish to spread my enthusiasm for work thin. Dating forced me to spread it thin, and if I were being honest, the whole process of dating made me utterly exhausted.

But now I had a handle on everything. I was ready to start anew, begin the process yet again like every other mad straight woman always assuming the next man will be different. And I was bored. I hate that most of all, that I was bored. My whole life in pieces because I didn’t buy a good enough vibrator.

“So you get to ‘like’ them back? And that’s a match?”

“Yes. If you gave me my phone, I could show you.” But it was no use; he was already at it. “You know, we have different tastes. You keep swiping no on people I think are cute.”

But Quinn kept the phone. “Babe, I have better taste than you. Just trust me.” And I did.

In a few minutes he passed back my phone. He’d only “liked” three people back: a tall, built guy with too many selfies. A dweeby-looking dude with excellent education credentials, but barely any neck.

And Him. Tom Newburn. Older, the oldest end of the spectrum I’d set. Thirty-seven—ten years older than I was then. Square jaw. Slicked back, dark hair. Shapely lips. One child. Liberal.

Within minutes, he’d messaged me. And it occurred to me, as my phone buzzed with a notification, that there was no way to tell when he’d “liked” me first, that he could have been waiting for months, since the moment I’d first logged off the app. And just like that, he pounced the moment I “liked” him back.

Are you a fan of Eyes Wide Shut?

And that made me smile, because that was my answer to the prompt “What’s one thing you can never stop talking about?” And I’d said: “Nicole Kidman’s poison green Galliano for Dior dress from the 1997 Oscars.” It was a cheeky answer for a straight woman to give; it easily filtered out the men who would automatically dismiss me as a “fashion chick” and swipe left.

I typed out a reply. Then deleted it. Typed it out again. Quinn wasn’t paying attention to me anymore; he was back on his own phone. I didn’t want his opinion, anyway.

Yes, but I prefer To Die For if you really want vintage Kidman.

That was the beginning of the end, I guess.

Excerpted from A Small Affair by Flora Collins, Copyright © 2022 by Flora Collins. Published by MIRA Books.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Flora Collins was born and raised in New York City and has never left, except for a four-year stint at Vassar College. When she's not writing, she can be found watching reality shows that were canceled after one season or attempting to eat soft-serve ice cream in bed (sometimes simultaneously). Nanny Dearest was her first novel.

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Book Review: Witcha Gonna Do? by Avery Flynn

An unlucky witch and her know-it-all nemesis must team up in the first of a new, hot romantic comedy series from USA Today bestselling author Avery Flynn.

Could it possibly get any worse than having absolutely no magical abilities when you’re a member of the most powerful family of witches ever? It used to be that I’d say no, but then I keep getting set up on dates with Gil Connolly whose hotness is only matched by his ego. Seriously. I can’t stand him. Even if I also can’t stop thinking about him (specifically kissing him) but we’re going to pretend I never told you that part.

So yeah, my life isn’t the greatest right now, but then it goes straight to the absolute worst hell when I accidentally make my sister’s spell glitch and curse my whole family. And the only person who can help non-magical me break the spell? You guessed it. Gil the super-hot jerk.

Now we have to work together to save my family and outmaneuver some evil-minded nefarious forces bent on world domination. Oh yeah, and we have to do all that while fighting against the attraction building between us because I may not be magical, but what’s happening between Gil and I sure feels like it.

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Disclaimer: I received an advanced reader's copy from Berkley, an imprint of Penguin Random House, via NetGalley. The following thoughts and opinions are entirely my own. 

This is my first introduction to Avery Flynn and her writing style. First things first. The cover is 5/5. I love the leafy scrollwork with witchy paraphernalia sprinkled about. Our main character is Tilda Sherwood, a member of one of the most powerful witch dynasties that there ever was. It's too bad Tilda is decidedly unmagical. That's a rough hand to be dealt. If my many years of reading Korean manhwas have taught me anything, life can go one of two ways for a powerless MC. One, the MC is bullied, ridiculed, and reviled by their family members and the rest of society. Or two, the MC is protected and loved before experiencing a traumatic event that spurs their transformation into a powerhouse with a thirst for vengeance. Typically, it's the former. Tilda usually finds herself often humiliated and the butt of the joke. Her opposite and supposed nemesis, Gil Connolly is the typical witchy researcher. The book is told in dual POV with the occasional Fourth Wall breaking. This is the first book in the Witchington series, but I felt like there was a lot going on at once and a lot left unresolved. The reasoning behind Tilda's dislike of Gil seemed superficial. The worldbuilding was both heavy and lacking in detail at the same time. There were mentions of the Council, the Resistance, and The Beyond, but there was little context of the whos, whats, and wheres. The rules of magic and magic theory were unclear and inconsistent. Since this was a witchy rom-com, the HEA was expected, but there was too much left unexplained and unexplored to be satisfactory. 

3.5 stars

About the Author

Photo Credit: Avery Flynn

USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling romance author Avery Flynn has three slightly-wild children, loves a hockey-addicted husband and is desperately hoping someone invents the coffee IV drip. She lives outside of Washington DC with her family, Dwight the cat, and a pack of five dogs all named after food. If she’s not reading romance or binging reality TV, she’s most definitely plotting to take over the world so she can banish Crocs from existence. Also, if you figure out how to send Oreos through the Internet, she’ll be your best friend for life.

Follow Avery on Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest. Like her on her Facebook page or friend her on her Facebook profile. She’s also on Goodreads and BookLikes.

Join her reader group, The Flynnbots, and receive special sneak peeks, prizes and early access to her latest releases!

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Blog Tour Promo Post: City of Fortune by Victoria Thompson

When a day at the races reveals sabotage and subterfuge, Elizabeth Miles must use every ounce of her craftiness to even the score in this all-new Counterfeit Lady novel from USA Today bestselling author Victoria Thompson.

Wealthy but uncouth Sebastian Nolan has invited his lawyer, Gideon Bates, and his lovely new wife, Elizabeth, to attend the famous Belmont Stakes. Nolan is anxious for Gideon and Elizabeth to help his daughter, Irene, acquire a bit of polish, now that his venture into thoroughbred racing has allowed them entry into society. He is also hoping to find her a rich potential suitor. Elizabeth is not exactly the society girl Nolan believes her to be, but she is eager to attend the races. Her con artist family has made a lot of money at racetracks, although not from betting on the horses, and she enjoys the excitement of the track.

Irene Nolan seems more interested in horses than husbands, and she jumps at the chance to show Elizabeth her horse, Trench, and introduce her to his rider, Cal Regan. Elizabeth soon realizes there is more than just a working relationship between Irene and Cal. But she also knows that Irene’s father would never allow his only daughter to marry a jockey. When Cal takes a terrible tumble injuring both himself and Irene’s beloved Trench, Elizabeth and Gideon learn that the mishap was not simply bad luck—the horse and rider are victims of sabotage.

It turns out that Sebastian Nolan has more than a few skeletons in his closet, and someone is out to get their long sought-after revenge. Elizabeth knows that to help Irene and Cal, she is going to need some help in creating the quintessential con. With the ever-honest Gideon at her side, she enlists those closest to her to come up with a scheme that will either ensure young Irene and Cal a first-place finish or have disastrous consequences.

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The ladies recognized the yellow silks Cal Regan wore and they made all the appropriate remarks about how beautiful Trench was. He was indeed. A dark gray with white stockings and a white blaze on his face, he stood out from the all the other horses and not just because of his unusual coloring. He seemed taller and larger and gave the impression of being carved from living stone. Gideon had no trouble at all understanding why Nolan had placed all his hopes on this animal.

Irene had hurried on ahead and she was already beside Trench, in earnest conversation with Mr. Quaid and Cal Regan.

“I can’t find a thing wrong with him, Miss Nolan, and neither could the vet,” Quaid was saying.

“He worked out fine this morning,” Regan confirmed, obviously anxious to put her mind at ease.

Irene reached up and gently stroked the enormous stallion’s face as if he were a lap dog. “I just have this feeling…”

“Females and their feelings,” Mr. Nolan said in an attempt to lighten the mood, but Irene scowled. “Quaid knows what he’s doing, Irene, and so does Cal. If they say he’s good to go, then we have to trust them.”

“It’ll be all right,” Regan said softly. “I’m going to win this one for you.”

Irene gave him what she might have thought was a grateful look in return, but even Gideon could see she felt more than gratitude for the jockey. She might tower over him, but she obviously cared for him, and he undoubtedly returned her feelings.

Could the two of them be in love?

Gideon glanced at Nolan to see if he had noticed, but he was too busy looking over his horse. What would Nolan say if he thought his daughter was in love with a jockey? Probably what any wealthy father would say if his daughter was in love with the chauffer. Jockeys as good a Regan earned a generous salary, but their careers were too often cut short by injury or simply by the bad luck of losing too many races. Nolan would want much more security than that for his only child. Irene would know that, of course, and she couldn’t possibly be seriously involved with Regan.

The call came. “Riders up!”

“We need to get back to our box so we can see the race,” Nolan said. “Come on, Irene. Cal will take it from here.”

Irene cast the jockey one last longing look and then followed the rest of them as they made their way back. Gideon was glad to see his mother link arms with Irene as they strolled. She would do her best to calm the girl. Gideon gave Elizabeth his arm.

“Do you think there’s something wrong with the horse?” she asked him quietly so Irene wouldn’t hear.

“I have no idea, but surely the trainer wouldn’t let him race if there was.”

“Racehorses are such delicate creatures, for all their strength. So many things can go wrong with them.”

“Let’s hope it’s just pre-race jitters on Irene’s part.”

The horses were parading by the time they found their places again. They watched as each one reached the barrier. It seemed to take an age for them all to line up, although it was probably no more than a minute or two. The remaining crowd yelled, “They’re off!” as the barrier flew up and the horses darted forward. It was a slow start, and Regan kept Trench from taking the lead, allowing the speedsters to charge ahead and wear themselves out. They had just rounded the first turn when he gave Trench his head. The stallion started to pull away from the pack when something happened.

They were all on their feet immediately, trying to see, but the horses were on the far side of the track and the rail was in the way. One thing was for certain: Six horses had come out of the first turn, but only five were entering the final turn. None of those five jockeys wore the Nolan yellow silks.

“What happened?” Irene cried. “Where are they?”

Then they saw Trench. He had risen and staggered away from the rail, and to their horror they saw he was dragging Cal Regan whose foot was caught in a stirrup.

Irene screamed, and she was running away from the box and down to the track before anyone could stop her. Nolan ran after her without a word.

Excerpted from City of Fortune by Victoria Thompson Copyright © 2022 by Victoria Thompson. Excerpted by permission of Berkley. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

About the Author

Photo Credit: Monica Z. Photography 2015

Victoria Thompson is the Edgar® and Agatha award-nominated author of the Gaslight Mysteries including Murder on Pleasant Avenue, and the Counterfeit Lady Mysteries including City of Scoundrels. Learn more online at victoriathompson.com.

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HTP Fall Reads Blog Tour (Mystery & Thriller Edition) Promo Post: The Opportunist by Elyse Friedman

A deliciously sly, compulsively readable tale about greed, power and the world’s most devious family.

When Alana Shropshire’s seventy-six-year-old father, Ed, starts dating Kelly, his twenty-eight-year-old nurse, a flurry of messages arrive from Alana’s brothers, urging her to help “protect Dad” from the young interloper. Alana knows that what Teddy and Martin really want to protect is their father’s fortune, and she tells them she couldn’t care less about the May–December romance. Long estranged from her privileged family, Alana, a hardworking single mom, has more important things to worry about.

But when Ed and Kelly’s wedding is announced, Teddy and Martin kick into hyperdrive and persuade Alana to fly to their father’s West Coast island retreat to perform one simple task in their plan to make the gold digger go away. Kelly, however, proves a lot more wily than expected, and Alana becomes entangled in an increasingly dangerous scheme full of secrets and surprises. Just how far will her siblings go to retain control?

Smart, entertaining and brimming with shocking twists and turns, The Opportunist is both a thrill ride of a story and a razor-sharp view of who wields power in the world.

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When the calls started up again, Alana ignored them. Ditto the texts and emails, including ones with red exclamation points attached. She had a part-time job that felt full-time and a daughter who required around-the-clock care. She had neither the hours nor the inclination to delve into family drama. And she already knew why her brothers were so desperate to reach her. The younger of the two, Martin, had been messaging sporadically for months about the “skank” their father had taken up with—a nurse, hired by the eldest, Teddy, to tend to the old man’s needs as he grew increasingly infirm and cranky. Nurse Kelly, a woman forty-eight years their father’s junior, a gold digger, obviously, and a clever one according to Martin. Pretty sure she had him at the first sponge bath. Alana was more amused than disturbed. She told her brothers she couldn’t care less. She had more important things to worry about. Eventually, they stopped contacting her.

Then a few weeks ago an oversize envelope had arrived in Alana’s mailbox. Thick creamy paper, her name embossed in swirling gold script—an invitation to the wedding of Edward Shropshire Sr. and Kelly McNutt. Ha! Clever indeed. She felt a fizz of satisfaction, even as she braced for the onslaught from her siblings, who would be outraged at the prospect of losing any portion of their massive inheritance. Alana hated her father and felt nothing but disdain for her brothers. She had no interest in “protecting the family investments” or “presenting a united front” or “having Dad’s back” or any of the increasingly urgent drivel that trickled in from her greedy siblings. She had been estranged from her father for decades and had no stake in this game. It was frankly a shock that she had been invited to the wedding. It must have been Kelly McNutt who insisted on that. The calls, texts and emails started up again with renewed fervor. When Alana finally concluded that her brothers would not leave her in peace until she responded, she composed a simple three-word text, not exactly a family joke, but something they would recognize and understand: BEYOND OUR CONTROL. She added a laughing-so-hard-I’m-crying emoji and sent it to Teddy and Martin.

She stopped hearing from them after that.

It was a rough night. Lily’s BiPAP alarm had gone off twice. She could breathe without the machine, but not as well, and Alana was programmed to leap into action from the deepest slumber. The first time it sounded, around 1:00 a.m., it was a mask-fit alarm. A quick adjustment and back

to bed. The second was more annoying: a leak alarm at 4:28 that took forever to rectify—no matter how much she fiddled, the alarm kept sounding. She finally got it fixed and Lily was able to get back to sleep, but Alana couldn’t. She lay in bed, her brain churning. At 5:40 she got up, made coffee, and bolted two cinnamon buns in quick succession, an act she immediately regretted, even as she was scraping the last bits of hard white icing from the aluminum pan into her mouth.

It was a workday, so she woke Lily early, helped her dress, and did her hair in French braids. Ramona was coming for the day and Lily liked to look nice for her favorite support worker. Unlike Alana, Ramona was big into girlie stuff: hair, nails, fashion. She would give Lily mani-pedis, and they would flip through Harper’s Bazaar and Teen Vogue and critique the outfits. Ramona had been with them since Lily was three years old, and Alana trusted her completely. She was hugely competent and a ton of fun. Lily was an earnest child, but when Ramona was around, she let herself be silly and boisterous. It would not be unusual for Alana to come home and find them both with teased-up hair and full-on glitter makeup, binge-watching RuPaul’s Drag Race. Ramona was what Lily called “chill.” Pretty much the opposite of Alana, who was always stressed out and exhausted.

“What time will you be home?” Lily asked.

“If all goes well, five thirty.”

“When does all ever go well?”

Alana laughed. “It’s rare, but it has been known to happen. I was home on time twice last week.”

“True.”

“And you have Ramona.”

“OK. But try.”

“I always try, lovey. But if someone shows up out of the blue at four thirty, I can’t just leave. I have to help them.”

“I know.”

Alana worked part-time at the RedTree Shelter, which offered emergency housing for victims of domestic abuse. It was a foolish job for her to have: low-paying and high stress. Not what she needed in practically her only hours away from managing Lily’s health. She should have taken employment that was easy on the soul, like flower arranging—some vaguely pleasant, not overly cerebral activity that would give her time to refresh and restore. She often fantasized about becoming a professional dog walker or making perfect heart shapes in foamy coffees all day, but she stayed with RedTree. It was important work that made her feel a little better about herself. She sometimes wondered if her motivations were selfish at root.

When Ramona arrived, Alana kissed Lily goodbye and left for work. On her third try she managed to get her Stone Age Honda Odyssey to start and was backing out of the drive when a Lexus pulled in behind her, blocking her way. She tapped the horn—a polite “I’m actually leaving here” signal. Nothing. The car just sat there. She honked again, harder, wondering why it always seemed to be a Lexus or a Mercedes or a BMW that cut her off in traffic, or jumped its turn at a four-way stop, or blocked her driveway when she was trying to get to work, for fuck’s sake. She curbed an impulse to ram her SUV into the shiny roadster, and instead left the Honda running while she strode toward the offending vehicle, getting ready to unleash years of pent-up luxury-car-inspired fury on the entitled asshole behind the wheel. But before she could bang her fist on the tinted window, it slid down smoothly, revealing her brother Martin talking on a cell phone. He had it resting flat on an upturned palm held in front of his face. “OK,” he said. “I know. I’ll take care of it.”

“What the hell, Martin? I have to go to work.” It had been years since she had seen him, but he looked pretty much the same—a slightly higher hairline, maybe a few extra pounds. He was still conventionally handsome, fair and blue-eyed with their father’s chiseled chin, but he now had the slightly puffy face of a drinker, the lightning-bolt blood vessels on the side of his nose. He smelled faintly of good cologne with a top note of leather from the luxury rental car’s seats.

He gave Alana the “I’ll-just-be-one-second” finger. “Listen, Damian, I gotta go. I’ll call you in an hour.” Martin pocketed the phone and smiled at his sister. “Sorry about that.”

“What are you doing here?”

“You didn’t get my texts? I need to speak to you. You have a minute?”

“Not at the moment, no.”

“I flew across the country to talk to you. You can’t give me two minutes of your time?”

“I have to go to work, Martin. If you want to ride with me, you’re welcome to. Just let me out, then you can park in the drive and Uber back.”

Martin eyed the dented Odyssey that was belching out exhaust. “Why don’t I drive you and give you cash to cab home?”

“No, thanks.”

He smiled tightly. “Fine.”

Alana returned to the SUV to wait for her brother. When Martin climbed in, he was carrying a stiff white envelope with a button-and-string closure and an airport gift-shop bag.

“Here, I got this for…your daughter.”

“Her name is Lily.”

“I know that. Of course…you named her after Lillian.”

A demented-looking doll with stiff blond ringlets stuck out of the tissue paper.

“Thanks,” said Alana. “She’s a little old for dolls though.”

“Oh. How old is she now?”

“Eleven.”

“Wow. Time flies. But I thought…”

“What?”

“You know… I figured she’d still be into dolls.”

“She’s not slow, Martin. Her brain is fine.”

“Oh. So…?”

“She has a rare form of muscular dystrophy. Well, rare for girls, common for boys.”

“Right.”

“She’s inside, by the way. You want to meet your niece?”

Her brother looked confused and pained, as if she’d asked if he wanted to donate a kidney or breastfeed a cat. “I thought you were in a hurry?”

“I am. I’m just messing with you.” Alana eased the Odyssey out of the driveway. She knew Martin wouldn’t want to meet Lily. And she didn’t want Martin to meet Lily.

“Can you turn the AC on?” Martin fanned himself with the white envelope. “It’s so freaking humid in this city.”

“Sorry, it’s busted.” Alana opened the rear windows to

let in more air but felt a perverse pleasure in depriving her brother of climate control.

“So, look, I understand you don’t care about Dad’s wedding—”

“I really don’t and I’m not going.”

“I don’t give a shit if you go or don’t go, but I’m here to tell you that you should care, actually.”

“And why is that?”

“Because this Kelly woman is seriously messing with Dad’s head.”

“His head or his assets?”

“Both. She’s got him wound around her finger. They’re in the process of setting up a charitable foundation.”

“And that’s a bad thing because…?”

“Because guess who’s going to run it and have access to three hundred million dollars?”

“Kelly McNutt?”

“Yes, Kelly McFucking Nutt. It’s a problem. This girl is dangerous.” A harp gliss sounded from Martin’s pocket. He switched his phone to silent mode.

“Well, it’s not my problem. And anyway, how do you know she won’t use the funds charitably and wisely?”

“Very funny.”

“I’m serious.”

“The same way I know that a twenty-eight-year-old nurse doesn’t fall madly in love with her seventy-six-year-old patient.”

Alana shrugged. “Unlikely, but you never know. I saw his picture in Forbes a few weeks ago. He still looks like Charlton Heston on steroids. Maybe she has daddy issues.”

“It would have to be more like granddaddy issues. I doubt she gets off on adult diapers.”

“He wears diapers?”

“He’s been incontinent for years.”

“Hmm.”

“You must have seen a pre-stroke picture in Forbes.”

“Dad had a stroke?”

“Yes. I told you that last year, Alana.”

“You did?”

“Jesus. Don’t you read your emails?”

“Sometimes the family stuff slips through.”

“Anyway, between that and the prostate surgery, I doubt he can even get it up for Miss McNutt.”

“OK, you know what? I don’t want to talk about this. I’m sorry you and Teddy are going to lose a chunk of your inheritance. But I’m sure there’s more than enough to go around.”

“Yeah, in a perfect world, we’d all be satisfied with our piece of the pie. He’s had playthings before, right? And wasted money on them. But this is different. This one is setting off alarm bells. She isn’t satisfied with having the run of the house and getting a Ferrari and—”

“He bought her a Ferrari?” Alana laughed.

“An 812 GTS. I don’t even want to tell you what that costs.”

“Like how much?”

“A lot.”

“Like a hundred Gs?”

“Try four times that.”

“Whoa.”

“Yeah. You think she’d be happy with the lifestyle, right? And some agreed-upon sum in a prenup that would effectively let her retire in high style eight years out of college. But no. Apparently, there isn’t going to be a prenup because he trusts her.”

“Really? That’s surprising.”

“I know. This is what I’m saying. Because she makes him exercise and eat his greens, he actually believes she has his best interests at heart. The woman is very savvy, and basically on a mission to alienate us from Dad. She’s been trying to discredit us from the beginning. And she’s subtle about it. She’s supersmart. He’s already given her power of attorney for personal care. How long before she’s in charge of his property too?”

About the Author

Photo Credit: Andrew Beveridge

Elyse Friedman is a critically acclaimed author, screenwriter, poet and playwright. Her work has been short-listed for the Trillium Book Award, Toronto Book Award, ReLit Award and Tom Hendry Award. She has also won a Foreword Book of the Year Award, as well as the 2019 TIFF-CBC Films Screenwriter Jury Prize and the 2020 TIFF-CBC Screenwriter Award. Elyse lives in Toronto.

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HTP Fall Reads Blog Tour (Women's Fiction Edition) Promo Post: The Sunshine Girls by Molly Fader

A cross between Firefly Lane and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, a dual-narrative about two sisters who realize their mother isn’t who they’d always thought when a legendary movie star shows up at her funeral, unraveling the sweeping story of a friendship that begins at a nursing school in Iowa in 1967 and onward as it survives decades of change, war, fame—and the secrets they kept from each other and for each other.

A moment of great change sparks the friendship of a lifetime...

1967, Iowa: Nursing school roommates BettyKay and Kitty don’t have much in common. A farmer’s daughter, BettyKay has risked her family’s disapproval to make her dreams come true away from her rural small town. Cosmopolitan Kitty has always relied on her beauty and smarts to get by, and to hide a devastating secret from the past that she can’t seem to outrun. Yet the two share a determination to prove themselves in a changing world, forging an unlikely bond on a campus unkind to women.

Before their first year is up, tragedy strikes, and the women’s paths are forced apart. But against all odds, a decades-long friendship forms, persevering through love, marriage, failure, and death, from the jungles of Vietnam to the glamorous circles of Hollywood. Until one snowy night leads their relationship to the ultimate crossroads.

Fifty years later, two estranged sisters are shocked when a famous movie star shows up at their mother's funeral. Over one rollercoaster weekend, the women must reckon with a dazzling truth about their family that will alter their lives forever…

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Clara

Greensboro, Iowa

2019

There were too many lilies. Clara wasn’t an authority on flowers or funerals. But, it was like a flower shop—that only sold lilies—had exploded in the blue room of Horner’s Fu­neral Home.

This was what happened when everyone adored you. They buried you under a mountain of your favorite flower—in this case, stargazers with their erotic pink hearts and sinus-piercing pollen—before they actually buried you.

And it was just a cosmic kick in the pants that Clara Beecher was allergic to her mother’s favorite flowers.

“Clara!” Mrs. Place, her eighth-grade language arts teacher, clasped Clara’s hands in her bony grip. Mrs. Place had not changed at all. She was the kind of woman who seemed mid­dle-aged at seventeen and just waited for time to catch up. “Your mother was so proud of you. You and your sister, you were her pride and joy.”

“That’s nice of you to say,” Clara said, keenly aware of her sister, Abbie, across the room doing the sorts of things that would make a mother proud.

“At book club, she’d go on and on about you and the im­portant work you were doing in the city and, well, most of it went right over my head,” Mrs. Place said. There was nothing complicated about Clara’s work; Mom just lied about it so, as a former hippie, she didn’t have to say the words my daughter is a corporate shill. “But you could tell she was just so proud.”

Clara pulled her hand free in time to grab a tissue from one of the many boxes scattered around the room and held it to her allergy-induced, dripping nose. “Thank you,” she said through the tissue.

“Everyone is going to miss Betts,” Mrs. Place said. “So much. There’s not a part of this town that she wasn’t involved in. Church, the library. Park board. Community gardens.”

Like an invasive species. Invite her to something and she’d soon be running the show.

Grief is making you sharp. That was something her mother would say. If she wasn’t dead.

The Blue Room of Horner Funeral Home was hot and wall-to-lily packed with people coming to pay their respects to one of Greensboro’s favorite citizens.

BettyKay Beecher had lived her whole adult life in this tiny town, and the town had shown up bearing casseroles and no-bake cheesecakes for the reception after the burial, wearing their Sunday best, armed with their favorite BettyKay stories.

She sat with my dad when he was dying.

She helped us figure out the insurance paperwork when our son was in his accident.

They were all mourning. The whole room and the hallway outside and the people still sitting in their cars in the park­ing lot. People were crying real tears, huddling, sobbing—actually sobbing—in corners. And all Clara could think was:

Did they know?

Had Mom, in true fashion, told the entire town the secret she’d kept from her own daughters for nearly forty years? The bombshell, life-rearranging, ugly secret she’d blurted, exasper­ated and furious with Clara in their last phone call?

Would they be mourning so hard if they knew?

Clara sneezed.

“Oh, bless you, honey,” Mrs. Place said.

“It’s just allergies.” Clara folded up the tissues before put­ting them in the pocket of her new black Marco Zanini suit with the sash tie and the sky blue silk lining. She’d thought the lining might be a bit much for a funeral, but that was be­fore she knew about the lilies.

And don’t get her started on all the men wearing camou­flage. To a funeral. Were they all going hunting after this?

“She’s with your father now. I hope you find comfort in that.”

“I do, thank you.” It was, as it always had been in Greens­boro, Iowa, easier to lie.

Another person came up with another story about Bet­tyKay Beecher. “Is that your sister?” She pointed across the room after sharing an anecdote about their time together in the Army Nurse Corps. “Abbie?”

Abbie was surrounded by her friends from childhood—who used to be Clara’s friends from childhood, not that it mattered—who kept bringing her mugs that were not filled with coffee. Abbie’s cheeks were flushed and her eyes were bright and she was half-drunk, crying and hugging and not at all bothered by the lilies.

“Yep. That’s my sister,” Clara said, ushering the woman toward Abbie and not even feeling bad about it. “She’d love to hear your story.”

Three years ago, they’d stood in this exact same room, mourning their father, Willis Beecher. It was hard to be home and not see him in the corners of rooms. She couldn’t drink rum or Constant Comment tea and not miss him. The smell of patchouli could bring her to tears. A sob rose up in her throat like a fist, and her knees were suddenly loose. She put a hand against the table so she didn’t crumple onto the floor.

I’m an orphan. Me and Abbie—orphans.

She was a full-grown adult. A corporate lawyer (about to make junior partner, fingers crossed) who billed at $700 an hour. She had a condo on Lakeshore and a good woman who loved her. Abbie had two kids of her own, a husband of twenty-five years and kept slices of homemade lemon loaf in the freezer that she could pop in a toaster in case someone stopped by for coffee. They were far from orphans.

But she couldn’t shake the thought.

Clara found the side door and stepped out.

The wind was icy, blowing across the farmland to the west, picking up the smell of fries and burgers from The Starlite Room, only to press her flat against the yellow brick. She felt the cotton-silk blend of her suit snag on the brick.

The first few days of March were cold, too cold to be out here without a jacket, but the freshness woke her up. Spring hadn’t committed to Iowa yet and the cornfields were still brown, lying in wait, like everything else in Greensboro, for the last blizzard to come hammering down from the Dakotas.

Her phone buzzed. She left it in her pocket.

Horner’s Funeral Home was on the other side of town from the Greensboro University, and St. Luke’s School of Nursing’s white clock tower was just visible over the trees. The univer­sity had all the flags lowered to half-mast for the week. It was a nice touch. Mom had been a student there and then a teacher and for the last twenty years, an administrator.

She closed her eyes, letting the wind do its work.

“Hey.”

Clara felt her sister lean back against the wall next to her, smelling of vanilla and Pinot Grigio.

“Hey,” she said, eyes still closed.

“The lilies—”

“Yeah.”

“You okay?”

Clara hummed in her throat, a sound that wasn’t yes or no. That was, in fact, the exact sound of the exhausted limbo the last few days had put her in.

“Me neither,” Abbie said. “It just… I feel like I’m missing something, you know? Like I’m walking around all wrong.”

Clara felt the same. Being BettyKay Beecher’s daughter was a part of her identity she didn’t always carry comfortably, but it was there.

“Where’s Vickie?” Abbie asked, and Clara caught herself from flinching at the sound of her girlfriend’s name.

“She wishes she could be here but she has a case in front of the Illinois Supreme Court.”

She felt Abbie’s doubt, the way she wanted to probe and pick.

“Did you have to blow up that picture so damn big?” Clara asked, before Abbie could get to her follow-up questions.

All around the funeral home were pictures of the Beecher family. And—God knows why—Abbie had decided to blow up to an obscene size, the picture of their mother that was on the back of her book: Pray for Me: The Diary of an Army Nurse in Vietnam. In it BettyKay was a fresh-faced twenty-two-year- old, with a helmet-shaped brunette bob wearing an olive green United States Army Nurse Corps uniform.

“Darn.”

“What?”

“Fiona’s turning into a little parrot, so we don’t swear any­more. We say ‘effing’ and ‘darn’ and ‘poop.’”

“That’s effing nonsense.”

“Probably.” Clara could hear the smile in her sister’s voice. “And yes, I did. I love that picture of Mom. She looks so brave.”

Clara thought she looked terrified.

“Max and Fiona don’t understand what’s happening,” Abbie said. “They keep asking why Gran is lying down.”

Clara’s laugh was wet with the lingering allergic reaction to the flowers. “That’s awful.”

“Denise from the hospital keeps trying to get the kids to touch Mom’s hand. So they can feel how cold she is and then they’ll understand.”

“What will it make them understand?”

“That she’s dead.”

“That’s morbid even for Denise.” They were both laugh­ing, which felt alien but sweet.

“She says it will give them closure.”

Abbie reached out and grabbed her hand. Clara started to pull away, but Abbie didn’t let go.

I should tell her. Part of her even wanted to. To share the burden of information like they were kids again. And Abbie, who liked the view from the perch her reputation as a Beecher in this town gave her, would tell Clara it wasn’t true. Couldn’t possibly be. That Mom had been wrong. Angry. Something.

Some excuse to keep everything the way it was.

That was why Clara couldn’t tell her. Because Abbie had to live in this town side by side with the memory of Mom. Bringing Abbie into it would make her sister’s life harder.

“Abbie, don’t get upset but I am going to leave after the re­ception at the church.” There. Done. Band-Aid-style.

“And go where?” Abbie asked.

“Back home.”

And here comes the look. “Chicago? You’re kidding.”

“We have a new client—”

“You’re leaving?” Accidentally Clara caught Abbie’s furious gaze and wished she hadn’t. She could see her sister’s rage and her grief and it felt worse than her own.

“I’ll be back,” Clara lied.

“Bullshit.” So much for not swearing.

“Abbie—”

“You know. I should have expected this. You show up last-minute in your car and your ugly suit—”

“Hey!”

“With your nose in the air—”

“I’ll pay to have the house boxed up.”

Abbie sucked in so much air Clara went light-headed from the lack of oxygen around her.

“Can we please not make this a big deal?” she asked.

“What did I ever do to you, Clara? To make it so easy for you to leave me behind?”

The wind caught the side door as it opened, banging against the brick with a sound that made Clara and Abbie jump like they’d been caught smoking.

Ben, Abbie’s husband, stuck his head out and Abbie stepped forward. Ben was a good-looking guy in a gentle giant kind of way. Constantly rumpled, but usually smiling. He reminded Clara of a very good Labrador retriever.

She wanted to pat his head and give him a treat. And then yell at him for tracking mud across the rug.

“There you are,” he said.

“I was just getting some air,” Abbie said, with surprising defensiveness. “Is everything okay?”

“There’s…” Ben glanced over his shoulder and made a face, bewildered and somehow joyful in a way that made Clara and Abbie push off the wall. It was his mother-in-law’s funeral after all. Joy was a strange sentiment.

“What?” Clara asked.

“Well, I think you should come in and see for yourself.”

Ben held the door while Abbie and Clara walked back into the packed room. Everyone was silent now, pressed to the walls and corners in little clumps, whispering in that painfully fa­miliar way out of the corners of their mouths and behind their hands. There was a path down the center of the room right to Mom’s casket, where she lay with her arms crossed, wearing her favorite green dress and way too much blush.

Standing at the casket, was a woman. A stranger.

Everything about her screamed not from around here. She wore an elegant long black skirt and a pair of boots with low heels of rich black leather. A gray sweater (Ralph Lauren Col­lection cashmere or Clara would eat her own boots) with a black belt around her trim waist. Her hair was long and sil­very blond, the kind that appeared natural but Clara would put money on the fact that it cost a lot and took a lot of time to keep that way.

She kind of…glittered.

“Who is that?”

“You don’t recognize her?” Ben whispered between Abbie and Clara’s shoulders, his breath smelling of coffee and cough drops.

Something about the woman did seem familiar, polished.

“Is she from the publishing company?” she asked Abbie.

“I don’t think so. They sent a cheesecake.”

“That morning show Mom did sometimes, in Des Moines? Ramona?”

“Ramona Rodriguez died, like, ten years ago.”

Clara should know this woman. But her mother’s funeral was throwing her off.

“Are you kidding me? You really don’t recognize her?” Ben asked. “It’s Kitty Devereaux.”



Excerpted from The Sunshine Girls by Molly Fader. Copyright © 2022 by Molly Fader. Published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

About the Author

Photo Credit: Jenny Blaauw

MOLLY FADER is the USA Today bestselling and award-winning author of The McAvoy Sisters Book of Secrets, The Bitter and Sweet of Cherry Season, and more than 40 romance novels under the pennames Molly O'Keefe and M. O'Keefe. She grew up outside of Chicago and now lives in Toronto.

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