BOOK EXCERPT: The Friendship List by Susan Mallery @susanmallery @tlcbooktours @harlequinbooks #thefriendshiplist

Can you believe it is the last day of July? Summer somehow feels like it just started and has been so long. I don’t know about you, but I have been missing vacations during this pandemic and my solution is to turn off electronics and escape into a perfect beach read book. I’m so excited today to feature and bring you an excerpt of The Friendship List by Susan Mallery. She is one of the best authors for a book that is full of heart, depth, emotion, and touches on themes of love, loss, friendship, and learning to let go and live.

About the Book

[ ] Dance till dawn

[ ] Go skydiving

[ ] Wear a bikini in public

[ ] Start living

Two best friends jump-start their lives in a summer that will change them forever…Single mom Ellen Fox couldn’t be more content—until she overhears her son saying he can’t go to his dream college because she needs him too much. If she wants him to live his best life, she has to convince him she’s living hers.

So Unity Leandre, her best friend since forever, creates a list of challenges to push Ellen out of her comfort zone. Unity will complete the list, too, but not because she needs to change. What’s wrong with a thirtysomething widow still sleeping in her late husband’s childhood bed?

The Friendship List begins as a way to make others believe they’re just fine. But somewhere between “wear three-inch heels” and “have sex with a gorgeous guy,” Ellen and Unity discover that life is meant to be lived with joy and abandon, in a story filled with humor, heartache and regrettable tattoos.

Excerpt

The neighborhood was quiet. Safe, too, she thought, carefully wrapping the crystal pieces and placing them in the box.

Dagmar appeared a few minutes later with an empty box and an armful of framed photographs. Betty had been a background dancer in Hollywood musicals back in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

“She was a beautiful girl,” Dagmar said. She held up a photograph of a very young Betty in a scanty costume with a spray of feathers on her head.

“She was. What an exciting life.”

“She was brave.” Dagmar sighed. “I never was. I studied dance all through high school. I wanted to run off to New York and be a Rockette.” She smiled. “Back then you didn’t have to be so tall and I just made the height requirement. But my parents were very opposed and I was too scared to do it on my own. So I went to college and got my degree in library science.”

“You’ve led a pretty interesting life,” Unity told her.

“No, dear. But I have married interesting men, so there’s that.”

“This is a really nice house,” Unity said as she continued to pack. “The rooms are all a good size.”

Dagmar’s brown eyes narrowed. “Oh my God! Don’t tell me you’re checking it out.”

“What? No. Of course not. I’ve never been in Betty’s house before.”

Dagmar put her hands on her hips. “You’re what? Thirty-two?”

“Thirty-four.”

“Whatever. You’re a baby. You should not be eyeing houses in an age-restricted community. You already spend too much time here as it is. Not that I don’t love your company but you should be with people your own age.”

“I am. All the time.”

Dagmar’s eyebrows rose. “Really? Is this before or after you come here for whatever classes you’ve signed up for this time.”

Unity tried not to sound defensive. “The classes are open to the entire county.”

“Yes, but you’re one of the few not collecting social security who bothers to take advantage of that.”

“So I’m smart.”

“You’re troubling me, Unity. It’s been three years. Don’t you think it’s time to want more than you have?”

“No.”

Dagmar sighed. “Maybe you want to think for a second before you answer.”

“Why? I like my life. I have my friends and my business.”

“Yes, you have all that, but what about a man?”

“I had my man. Dagmar, let it go.”

“I can’t. You had a wonderful marriage and Stuart died and it’s all very sad, but at some point you need to move on. Start dating. Have you thought about dating at all?”

“Since the last time you asked? Not really.”

Unity did her best to keep her tone friendly. She didn’t like this line of questioning. No, she hadn’t thought of dating. She’d been married to Stuart and that had been enough. One month after their wedding, he’d left for basic training. She’d joined him when he’d been assigned to a base in Colorado.

That had been their life. She’d made a home at whatever base he’d been assigned to. When he’d had leave, they’d traveled everywhere together. When his work had taken him overseas, she’d waited for him to come back to her. Being married to Stuart was all she knew. Three years after his death, she still only knew how to be his wife. Even her handyman business had grown out of her life with Stuart. Now it supported her and gave her something to do with her day.

There were supposed to have been children, but they’d wanted to wait until they were thirty and then his mom had died, so they’d waited another year and then Stuart had been gone.

“I’m sorry,” Dagmar said unexpectedly, pulling Unity close. “I’m pushing you and that never goes well. It’s just I hate to see you wasting your life, hanging out with a bunch of old farts with cataracts and spider veins. You should be with some young people, going out and having fun.”

“I have fun with you.”

Dagmar released her and smiled. “I am a good time, aren’t I? And while I appreciate the compliment, I was thinking more in the lines of sex. Darling, you desperately need a man.”

“I was thinking more of getting my bangs trimmed.”

“How very sad. All right, young lady. One more house check for silly crystal figurines. Although I’m in no position to cast stones. After all, my house is a shrine to all things Thomas Kincaid. I can’t help it. His work moves me. Plus, I can get new things dirt cheap at the estate sales around here.”

Unity did one more pass through the house. For now she was happy to live in what had been Stuart’s house, surrounded by his life as a boy. The familiar was comforting. But in another twenty-one or so years, she would qualify to move to Silver Pines and wasn’t that something to look forward to?