RELEASE BLITZ
Title:
Housewife Chronicles
Author:
Jennifer Snow
Genre: Dark
Comedy/Women’s Fiction
Release Date:
January 12, 2021
BLURB
Her husband's affair coming to light two weeks before his death should
have been the worst thing to happen to Beth Cartwright that year. But
being a widowed, single mom in a community of upper-class housewives is
proving to be far more difficult.
Living next door to her husband's mistress and her former yoga
instructor-Gina Thompson, has Beth wanting to pack up her teenage kids
and get the hell out of the neighborhood. But when she becomes a
suspect in her husband's death, she needs to rely on her husband's
mistress and the rest of her quirky neighborhood friends to keep her
out of jail.
Housewife Chronicles is a dark comedy with a hint of mystery and a
focus on unlikely female friendships.
GOODREADS
LINK: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55230138-housewife-chronicles
PURCHASE LINKS
US: https://amzn.to/2I4Uyf9
UK: https://amzn.to/32j4eK3
CA: https://amzn.to/3mWKNyM
AU: https://amzn.to/2TZf6s8
Free in Kindle Unlimited
EXCERPT
Part 1…
BETH
Upper-middle class was a special version of hell.
Expensive homes with crippling mortgages, perfectly manicured lawns,
and luxurious cars in the driveways could mask all kinds of sins. I
like to think the secrets happening within the walls of my own split
by-level weren’t the worst ones in the neighborhood. As I jog through
the streets, my feet pounding the pavement in the same footsteps every
morning for fifteen years, I fantasize about the lives I’m not living.
My husband’s death should have been the worst thing to happen to me
this month, but as it turns out, there are worse things a husband can
do to a wife than simply die.
Being the single widowed mom in a community of housewives was nowhere
on my life plan. That thing we all fill out before high school
graduation–our hopes and dreams, our roadmap to our future.
So optimistic. So ultimately full of shit.
I stop in front of the white picket fence of a three-story house and
stare at the red-painted door. Red is supposed to be inviting.
Apparently, everyone in the neighborhood had gotten the memo–except me.
Our door is still white.
Would painting it now stop the neighbors from giving me those
suspicious looks?
Oh good, Beth finally
painted the door. She’s one of us now.
Or would it be,
Beth finally
painted the door. What is she hiding now?
I keep saying I'm going to stop coming to this weekly coffee, but after
twelve years, I wouldn't know how to quit. It’s my routine. So far
ingrained in my social calendar as though part of my DNA. Can one ever
fully escape the cult that is upper class housewives? Howard's death
could have at least given me that much.
I finish stretching, not in a rush to go inside, but the garbage
pick-up truck inches closer, and I want to avoid the feel of male eyes
on my ass or worse, the embarrassment of not warranting their
attention. I climb the stairs, turn the knob on the front door, and
enter the house.
Instead of freeing me from this obligation, Howard's death had somehow
become the new reason I need these women. The same ones who brought his
affair to light two weeks before he died. The ones who'd picked up the
scent of an extramarital vibe around my husband at a neighborhood
barbeque and followed the trail right to the house next door to mine
where the divorced yoga instructor lives.
My
yoga instructor.
My Fitbit Heart Rate Monitor starts beeping.
Deep breath in. Deep breath out.
Howard is dead… Karma already did what I'd been tempted to.
An almost shrill, soprano voice drifts down a spiraling marble
staircase as I close the door behind me. “Elizabeth, is that you?”
No. It's Beth. Just Beth, but we've already had this conversation a
dozen times, and Grace refuses to believe my parents actually named me
Beth. Nicknames weren't acceptable to her.
I jog up the stairs to the third floor. “Where are you guys?
“My bedroom,” Grace says.
As I approach the Master bedroom at the end of the hall, that a small
child could go missing in-if children were allowed inside the home-I hear them
talking about me. They know I can hear them. They don’t care.
“Why are we always waiting on her?”
“She doesn't work, yet she's always late.”
“I’m never late when coffee is at my house,” I say, entering the room.
“What are we...?”
I stop at the sight of Sophia sitting on Grace’s bed–topless. Grace has
her hand on Sophia’s left breast, but bruising and a faint scar around
the nipple are visible on the other.
“Feel. Just like the real thing,” Sophia tells me.
A month ago, she’d said the same thing about her new platinum blonde
hair extensions.
“No thanks. I have my own.” Not nearly as impressive as the double D’s
I can’t look away from. Nothing these women do ever surprises me
anymore. I never know what I’m going to walk into…maybe that’s the real
reason I still come to coffee.
“Come on. Everyone else has,” Grace says.
The other woman in the room, Holly, is on her cell phone near the
window, but she nods her agreement.
Well, if Holly did it.
I step forward and poke one. Sophia grabs my hands and presses one to
each breast. I’m held captive. They feel nothing like I assumed they
would. Only days after surgery, and they do feel real. Like mine did
before two children, gravity, and a lack of giving a shit turned my
breasts into a place to balance my plate when I ate dinner at my
pottery wheel. Which was every day lately.
“Okay, now my nipples are getting hard.”
I drop my hands.
“Just kidding, the surgery eliminated almost all nipple sensitivity,”
Sophia says, reaching for a tan, surgical bra and her discarded shirt
draped across the bed.
Grace hands me a card, and I read “Dr.
River Onyx-Top Breast Augmentation Surgeon in L.A.”
So, I'm not the only one to notice my saggy, lifeless breasts.
“You really should call him. Gina recommended him to me and–” Sophia
stops short.
The women all exchange looks.
“We can say her name.” Gina and her rocking body are not going
anywhere, anytime soon, and despite the trash-talk about her, I know
they’re all still attending her yoga classes. Everyone could claim to
blame Gina for the affair, but we all still wanted a body like hers.
I glance at the card again. “Can I keep this?”
“Tell him I referred you,” Sophia says.
I slide the business card into the pocket of my sweatpants. I’d never
book an appointment with a cosmetic surgeon while in my right state of
mind, but in case there’s an even lower point for me to reach… “Is
coffee made?”
“I’ve got something better than coffee,” Grace says. “Follow me.” She
leaves the room, her expensive perfume–a mix of honey and
daffodils–lingers like a cloud behind her, but I love the smell, so I
breathe it in. She refuses to tell any of us what brand it is, like
it’s her signature scent, and she can’t be unique and envied without
it.
I watch Sophia on the stairs, staring at her new chest, but the breasts
don’t move as she descends. No bounce, no sag. They stay perfectly put.
It would be nice to have one thing in my life that under control.
Holly follows behind the group, her cell phone still plastered to her
ear, talking quietly in an authoritative tone, her short, graying,
jet-black bob covers her left eye and cheek. I’m not sure I’d even
recognize her if I saw her full face.
We reach the lower level, and unlike the delicious scent of Grace’s
perfume, a rancid smell fills my nostrils as I enter the kitchen. “What
is that?” I ask, trying not to breathe too deeply.
“Durian tea,” Grace says, as a timer sounds on the counter.
“Ohhh, I read about this in Cosmo last month.” Holly has finally put
her cell phone away. She leans over a pot boiling on the stove.
At our age we are still reading Cosmo? Must be the doctor’s office
copies. Wouldn’t we get carded if we actually tried to buy one?
Sorry, ma’am, but
the amount of wrinkles on your face suggests you are too far gone for
these pearls of wisdom to be of any benefit. It would be unethical to
allow you to waste your money.
“This stuff is supposed to be the ‘king of fruit,’” Sophia says,
reading a text message on her cell phone. Her crazy long, mint green
nails fly over the keyboard as she responds.
“Then why does it smell so bad?” I ask.
“Give it a chance,” Grace says. “It’s really good for you. It’s even an
aphrodisiac.”
“Not exactly what I need right now.”
Grace pours four mugs of the hot, clear liquid and places one in front
of me anyway. I open the fridge for a bottle of water instead. As I go
to sit on a stool at the counter, Grace stops me. She scans the
kitchen, grabs a plastic step stool, and gives it to me to sit on. “You
don’t mind. I just had them redone, and you’re all sweaty from your
run.”
I sit on the newly reupholstered stool. She can kiss my slightly sweaty
ass.
Grace doesn’t argue. She doesn’t believe in conflict. It’s one of the
things that intrigues me most about her. She’s so calm and
even-tempered. For my own sense of self-worth, I have to envision her
screaming in her massive walk-in closet when no one is around. She puts
the stool back and addresses the group.
“Okay, so I'm thinking we should add a book club element to these
weekly coffees.” She picks up a book on the counter.
Love and Rumors,
by Grace Lee.
Grace is a fiction author. Her new book is based on her latest divorce
from Hollywood movie star, Brent Jackson. Her third failed
marriage. Like an older version of a certain young popstar, Grace has
learned to turn her heartache and drama into profit and live a very
nice lifestyle from the settlements.
“Advanced reader copies. I have one for each of you,” she says,
as she hands them out.
Holly hands hers back. “No. This hour every week is the only time I get
to relax. I'm not studying for it.” She’s typing an email with one hand
as she says this. Answering six work-related emails during this hour is probably
relaxing to her.
“It's reading…not studying,” Grace says, unoffended.
“It’s not happening.”
At forty-six, Holly is the oldest in the group, and that, by default,
prevents any of us from disagreeing with her. She’s the “housewife” in
the group I like best. Especially, today. Of course, I'll tell Grace I
read her book. Honesty isn’t as important to this group as
ego-stroking.
“You all owe me twenty-seven, fifty. Pay whenever you can,” Grace says.
“Can we get onto the subject of the day?” Holly asks. The subject of
the day was her idea. If we only had an hour of girl talk a week, it
should be focused on a topic, so as not to waste time with idle
chitchat. It was the host’s job to come up with it each week.
Grace stares straight at me. “Yes. This week’s topic is Elizabeth.”
“Me?” Since that isn’t my name, I can’t be sure.
“Let’s be more specific,” Sophia says, blowing on the hot liquid in her
cup.
So, there’s more than one thing they’d like to discuss about me. When
did I become so fascinating?
“Okay, her love life or sex life, I guess,” Grace says.
Holly nods while responding to another message on her phone. “I agree,
this should be discussed.”
“I was waiting for someone to bring it up,” Sophia says, her cell phone
blowing up with new text messages from her husband, Bob.
“I’ve been widowed all of five minutes.”
“But you’ve been separated for weeks, and let’s be honest, Howard
wasn’t lying when he said your marriage was over a long time ago,”
Holly says, sipping her tea. Her teal-rimmed, oval glasses steam up,
blocking the look of judgment in her eyes.
“I don’t necessarily agree with that.” Howard’s perception of our
marriage had been completely different from mine. We’d been
comfortable. We had a routine. Suddenly that meant the death of a
marriage?
“Before he died, when was the last time the two of you had sex?” Sophia
asks, as she replies to her husband’s texts.
I want to answer, but I don’t know. Of course, Howard was screwing Gina
for months, so his interest in me had waned.
“Okay, then. So, we need a plan to get Elizabeth ‘back in the saddle.’
Anyone have any single male friends we can set her up with? Rebounds.
Not good guys, they will come later. Right now, we just need hot and
available,” Grace says. She picks up her phone and scrolls through her
contacts list.
She better not recommend one of her own rebound boy toys. That’s a line
I refuse to cross.
The others think. And think.
Grace frowns. “There’s gotta be someone,” she mutters.
I get up from the stool. “You know what, get back to me. I have a
client coming to pick up some pieces, so I have to go.”
“Do you want to take your tea?” Grace asks, reaching for an
eco-friendly, disposable to-go cup from a stack on the counter.
“No, thank you. Someone else can enjoy mine.” Someone who had a penis
lying around they could use in case that aphrodisiac side effect kicked
in.
“Okay…,” Grace says in a tone that suggests I’ve turned down the
opportunity to drink from the fountain of youth, and I really can’t
afford to.
“Oh, and Beth?” Holly says, as I go to leave. “Now that you’re on your
own, you may want to get your lawn mowed.”
Seriously? “Are you trying to imply that I may have been at fault for Howard
cheating? Cause I’ll have you know, my ‘lawn’ is very well maintained–”
Holly turns to Grace. “What the hell is she talking about?”
Grace nods toward my crotch.
“I think she thought you meant...” Sophia has no problem showing her
bare breasts to the world, but she’s embarrassed by the word vagina.
“I actually meant your real
lawn,” Holly says, as her cell phone rings, and she checks the call
display. “The grass has grown well above neighborhood standards, and
we’ve let it slide because you’re grieving, but you’ll need to take
care of it.”
Right. “I’ll do it today.” Embarrassed, I hurry out of the kitchen. The
sound of their laughter follows me even after I leave the house.
I really, really have to stop coming to weekly coffee.
AUTHOR BIO
Jennifer Snow is an award winning, USA Today Bestselling author of over
35 romance and thriller novels. Publishing with Grand Central,
Harlequin, Berkley and Thomas & Mercer, she has over ten years of
experience crafting stories that connect with readers worldwide. Her
books have been translated into five different languages and have been
optioned for film and television. She has won the Booksellers’ Best
Award and has received Starred Reviews from Publishers’ Weekly.
Jennifer is the writer of the Mistletoe series of screenplays. She is
known for her romantic comedies and female-driven dramas for TV and
film. In 2014, she was a finalist in the New York Screenplay Contest
for her work “Mistletoe Fever”. She’s also written true-crime and
thriller screenplays as work-for-hire assignments for various
production companies.
Her film work is represented by Alexia Melocchi at Little Studio Films
and her literary work is represented by Jill Marsal at the Marsal Lyon
Literary Agency. More info can be found on her website: www.jennifersnowauthor.com
AUTHOR LINKS
Website: http://www.jennifersnowauthor.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jennifersnow18
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jennifersnowbooks
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