Big News: Lisa's new psychological thriller THE UNRAVELING OF JULIA coming July 15, 2025!

Column Classic: Love Boat

By Lisa Scottoline

I’m getting ready to launch THE UNRAVELING OF JULIA on book tour, so I’ll be running Classic Columns for a month.

Details about my signings are on my website, and I hope you’ll come see me on the road! Thanks so much for the love and support! I’m grateful for each and every one of you!

It’s everybody’s favorite time of year again.

My birthday!

That’s how I feel about my birthday, and that’s how I feel about yours, too.

I celebrate your birthday in my head, so I hope you’re celebrating mine your head.

It’s cheaper that way.

Also we don’t get drunk.

Well, maybe I do.

But this birthday felt different to me, in a good way.

I feel super happy just to be alive.

Let’s pause a moment.

I know that sounds kind of Splenda, but it’s really true.  And the fact is, absolutely nothing has changed from last year. 

In fact that’s exactly what is making me happy.

It really is a good thing to be grateful sometimes that you’re still living.

I get constant reminders of this, and I had one just this weekend, with Francesca. We were scheduled to give a speech about our collections of funny stories like these, the newest of which is out this July 11, entitled I NEED A LIFEGUARD EVERYWHERE BUT THE POOL.

Actually I need a lifeguard at the pool, too.

But that’s another story.

Literally.

Anyway we were supposed to speak at the American Library Association conference in Chicago, and we were both excited because we love librarians.  

Hug your librarian the next time you see him or her.

They don’t get enough hugs.

Nobody does.

See what I mean?

Splenda!

Anyway, when I go on a business trip, I fly out, do my gig, and fly right back.  I don’t do anything other than the gig, because it’s business.

But Francesca had a different idea.  “Mom, I’ve never been to Chicago,” she said.  “Why don’t we go sightseeing and leave later that night?”

I rolled my eyes.  Inwardly.

Don’t roll your eyes outwardly if you’re a mother.

You’ll get in a lot of trouble.

But I said yes, and Francesca went online, researching the things you could do in Chicago, which I heard about with an inward eyeroll.

Because I didn’t think you were supposed to have fun on a business trip.

And before I knew it, we were in Chicago, we did our gig, talked about our book, and gave a lot of hugs, then we woke up the next day, ready for tourist fun in the sun.  

What did we do?

We saw the cool bean statue at Millennium Park.

Cool beans!

And we went to the gorgeous Buckingham Fountain, which is next to a body of water they say is a lake but anybody from Philly would call an ocean.

But the best thing we did was take a boat ride with a billion other tourists down the Chicago River, with a volunteer telling us the architectural history of the skyscrapers.

Inward eyeroll?

Same here, but I was wrong.

It was awesome.

Because this amazing volunteer knew everything about architecture and gave us almost two hours of her time simply because she loves architecture and her city.

And because we learned everything about the brilliant architects and engineers who imagined and then built a slew of incredible buildings, each of them a tribute to human ingenuity and hard work.

And even because people on the bank waved to our boat as we floated by, and Francesca and I waved back, even though we had no idea who they were, or they us.

In fact, we waved at people on the riverbanks the whole damn boat trip, and people on the riverbanks waved back, and that made Francesca and I tear up, unaccountably.

Okay, accountably, since we’re Italian-American.

We cry all the time.

That’s how you know we’re happy.

The boat trip was a reminder of the simple truth that we’re all just human beings, floating down some river, waving at each other as we go by.

And when I thought of the architects, the engineers, the volunteers, and the librarians, I felt awed by all of us, just normal people, filled with so much vision and heart, following whichever endeavor we choose, our passion or our job and sometimes both.  With just ourselves, we build communities, cities, and even countries.

Like this one.

And by the end of the day, I remembered I was happy to be alive.  

You probably already know this lesson, but in my life, I need to teach it to myself from time to time.

Which is to go slower.

Enjoy yourself.

Feel the sun on your face.

Wave.

And do really touristy things, because there’s a reason so many people like to do the same things, wherever they go.  

Because people are basically the same, everywhere you go.

We’re all tourists in this life, aren’t we?

None of us is from here.

And none of us is staying.

And so my biggest birthday present was that I got another year on my trip.

I pray that will be your present, too.

Happy birthday to us.

And of course, to America.

Copyright © Lisa Scottoline 2017

Classic Column: Love Bites

by Francesca Serritella

Bust out the citronella candles, it’s mosquito season! Here’s a Classic Column about feeling favored by the summer pest and what these bloodsuckers might have to teach us about attraction. Tell me, do mosquitos like you, or love you?

Mosquitos love me.

I’ve always believed I get an inordinate number of mosquito bites, but I never said it out loud.  Everyone feels this way.  Brandish a bottle of OFF! at any summer barbeque, and five people will proclaim that mosquitos love them with equal parts self-pity and pride.  It’s almost a humble-brag, as if mosquitos are real aesthetes, the blood-sucking playboys of the insect world.

The subtext is: “There’s just something about my exposed skin that attracts all species, whatta hassle!”

Then I recently came across an article explaining mosquitos actually do have a “type:” they’re most attracted to humans with the blood type O.

My blood type.

I wasn’t imagining it, it wasn’t some messed up version of vanity, it was science!

Click to read the full column on Francesca’s Website

Copyright © Francesca Serritella | www.francescaserritella.com | @FrancescaSerritellaauthor | @fserritella

Column Classic: Greased Lightning

By Lisa Scottoline

I’m a big fan of combinations, like soup-and-sandwich.  Peanut butter-and-jelly.  Spaghetti-and-meatballs.

You may detect a pattern.

Carbohydrates are the leitmotif.

Or maybe the heavy-motif.

One combination I never thought of is jeans-and-moisturizer.  Lucky for women, marketing has thought of that for us!

You may have read the news story which reported that Wrangler is selling a line of jeans that embeds microcapsules of moisturizer in the fabric, which evidently explode on impact with your thighs and moisturize them.

I think this is an awesome idea.  I often fantasize about things that would explode on impact with my thighs, such as Bradley Cooper.

It gives new meaning to the term thunder thighs.

The line of jeans is called Denim Spa, which is quite a combination, right there.  Denim and Spa are two words I have never experienced together. 

Like love-and-marriage.

But to stay on point, Wrangler markets three types of moisturizer jeans.  One comes embedded with Aloe Vera and another with Olive Oil, but choosing between the two is a no-brainer for me.  I wouldn’t pick Aloe Vera, because she sounds like someone I went to high school with and I don’t share jeans.

I’d leave the aloe alone.

Instead I’d pick the olive oil.  If I added balsamic, those jeans would be delicious.

But only extra virgins can wear them.

Count me out.

Come to think of it, if I were going to infuse jeans with food, I would go with Cinnabons. 

Extra frosting is more fun than extra virgin.

The moisturizer in the jeans lasts up to fifteen days, but Wrangler also offers a “reload spray” that you can squirt your pants with.  I’m not sure I’d buy the spray.  It would be cheaper to pour olive oil on my pants, like a salad.  I’d dress them properly, before I got dressed.

But the third type of moisturizer jeans is my favorite, and it’s called Smooth Legs.

I need Smooth Legs.  I have only Scaly Legs and Hairy Legs, or a combination of the two, which is Scary Legs. 

The amazing thing about the Smooth Legs jeans is that they not only moisturize your legs, they fight cellulite.

Wow!

According to the website, the way they do this is by a “special formula” embedded in the jeans, which contains “caffeine, retinol, and algae extract.”

Which contains mayonnaise.

Why fight jeans that fight cellulite?

I wouldn’t.  I’d be scared.  They can “reload.”  I wouldn’t buy them without a background check.

If you ask me, fighting cellulite is a lot to ask from a pair of pants, much less clothing in general, and you’ve got to hand it to Wrangler, which charges a mere $150 for a pair of these hard-working jeans.  That’s only $75 per leg or approximately $.03 per cellulite dimple, if you have 2,928,474,747 million dimples, like me.

In fact, I just got another 4,928,749, in the time you took to read that last sentence.

In my experience, cellulite comes only in packs of 4,928,749.

I wouldn’t mind having a pair of pants that fought cellulite for me, which would be like having a lawyer for my butt.

This is because I don’t spend any time fighting my cellulite.  On the contrary, my cellulite and I have an arrangement.  My cellulite agrees to stay on the back of my legs, thighs, and tushie, and I agree not to look at myself from behind. 

This turns out to be easy.  Because I always move forward and never look back.

Metaphor not included.

In truth, I’ve come to accept and enjoy my cellulite.  I can amuse myself by playing connect the dots on my thighs or finding constellations on my butt.  For example, my left rump sports not only the Big and Little Dippers, but also The Serving Spoon, The Soup Ladle, and The Cake Knife.

The best thing about the moisturizer jeans is that all that grease must make them easier to get on.  But being menopausal, I might need more lubrication.

Like motor oil.

Come to think of it, I won’t be buying the moisturizer dungarees.

They’re not worth dung.

Copyright © Lisa Scottoline

Big-Ass Night Table

by Lisa Scottoline

Size matters in only one thing.

Night tables.

I’m on a quest for the perfect night table.

This quest began forty-odd years ago.

I’ve looked for the perfect night table longer than I’ve looked for the perfect man.

Honestly, only one is essential in a bedroom.

Let me explain.

I started life with a really small night table, and I would put my glasses on the night table and they would fall off instantly, usually face down.

I scratched glasses nonstop.

I would pick them up if I was still awake, but if I was too tired, I would leave them there. And step on them on my way to the bathroom.

Plus I never had enough room for a real-sized lamp, which I needed to read.

The night lamp is itself a quandary.

If you get one that’s big enough to read by, you won’t be able to reach the knob and turn it off when you want to go to sleep.

And if you get one that’s too small, you’ll stop reading because it’s too hard on your eyes, then you’ll start scrolling Instagram and end up hating yourself.

The only thing instant about Instagram is self-hate.

I actually don’t know if the pretty shiny people on Instagram are real.

If they are, do they scroll Instagram and end up hating their lives, too?

To return to point, in time I learned that lamp size didn’t matter because inevitably, the dog would fall asleep on my arm and I didn’t have the heart to move him to turn off the lamp anyway.

I’d lie wake in the brightly-lit bedroom, only one of us snoring.

Any true dog lover knows to stay put when your dog falls asleep on you.

Like, our dogs teach us to stay.

The other bad thing about my too-small night table was that I had to stack my books on the floor, where they would be ready for me to slip on when I went to the bathroom.

It wasn’t a bedroom, it was a booby trap.

And I was the booby, trapped.

So at some point I started using a big-ass night table, which was actually an antique card table I had for years.

At first I was excited. I could put all my books on it, and a big-ass lamp, a big-ass Yeti of ice water, and a big-ass jug of Cetaphil. My phone charger would be closest to the bed, plus the lint roller in case I found a tick on a dog before bedtime.

What, you don’t lint-roll your dog for ticks before bed?

Must be nice.

To return to point, I just fell out of love with my big-ass night table.

It was so big that I would hit my hip on it every time I got up to go to the bathroom. Not only that, but what I learned from having the big-ass night table is that you use only the three inches closest to the bed.

The rest is just clutter you can’t reach anyway.

A night table that you makes you get up defeats the purpose.

Also the dog told you to stay.

So the quest continues.

Copyright © Lisa Scottoline 2025

Column Classic: Upgrading the Macaroni Necklace

by Francesca Serritella

My mom’s birthday is a month away, and I’m wracking my brain about what to get her—but really, it’s my favorite thing to obsess over. Here’s a Classic Column, which might be new to you as it never ran in the Inquirer, about birthday shopping for my favorite person.

When it comes to giving a gift to your mother, kids get a pass for a long time.  But when your mother has a milestone birthday like sixty, a macaroni necklace will not do.

It was time for me to get my mother a grown-up gift.

This is not to say that I haven’t gotten her nice things in the past, but this year I wanted it to be really special.  Maybe because I know that my mom is single, I wanted to get her a gift as nice as a husband would get. 

Not one of her husbands—a really good husband.

I got in my head that it had to be jewelry.

I’d never bought a piece of fine jewelry before.  First, I studied.  For months leading up to her birthday, every moment of procrastination was spent searching the websites of jewelers and department stores for every item within my budget. 

Since I couldn’t afford ninety percent of their inventory, this took less time than you might think.

After obsessively zeroing in on a few favorite options, I decided to make a trip to Cartier.  Embarrassingly, I’d dressed up for the occasion.  I wore a shirtdress that I thought said, “I use ‘summer’ as a verb.”

Click to read the full column on Francesca’s Website

Copyright © Francesca Serritella | www.francescaserritella.com | @FrancescaSerritellaauthor | @fserritella

Forza Mother Mary

By Lisa Scottoline

I’m turning into my mother.

But only in the weird ways.

Let’s begin with the ways I’m not turning into her.

I cannot make her tomato sauce.

Which honestly, we called gravy.

It’s a South Philly thing.

In my early books, I would write about gravy, and the copyeditor would replace it with tomato sauce, to which I would reply stet, which is bookspeak for back off.

Her gravy was unbelievable. It was rich, but not heavy, with incredible taste.

Never mind that she didn’t use a single fresh ingredient.

The tomatoes were canned, the paste was canned, and she added garlic salt and onion salt.

Nothing had to be washed or diced for her gravy.

Which is proof that it didn’t matter.

I guarantee this was the best gravy on the planet. We ate spaghetti in some form almost every night, whether it was regular pasta or her homemade gnocchis and ravioli, which were also out of this world, but the gravy made everything great.

You could put that gravy on cardboard and never stop eating.

I remember asking her what the recipe was, and she said, “You’re not getting it.” Which is pure Mother Mary.

I never thought to question it, because like all kids, I never imagined her dying.

But then she did, and of course I miss her, but you know what else I miss?

Correct.

So fast-forward to the rest of my life, when I try to make the gravy and fail miserably. Then I try a variety of jarred gravy that would make any card-carrying Italian-American shudder, but I do it anyway and I hit upon Rao’s.

Which is the closest to my mother’s but honestly, hers was even better.

So now I have pasta with an inferior gravy and think: “Mom, really?”

So fast-forward again to me in my dotage when I watch everything on Netflix, and for some reason I get hooked on Drive to Survive, which is all about F1 racing and I like it because I’ve always liked cars.  And I’m lucky enough to be able to write about what interests me, so I find myself sneaking cars into my novels, then I find myself going to car events.

And last weekend I went to one and bought something my mother would’ve bought.

You may remember that Mother Mary always wore a lab coat.

She’s still the only person to have checked into a hospital in a lab coat.      

She got them at the Dollar Store and she liked them because they had pockets for crossword puzzle and her cigarettes.

In any event, fast-forward to me, finding myself at an exotic car event and shopping at the stands where they sell shammy clothes and ceramic wax to more serious gearheads than I am, and I see a thing of beauty.

A Ferrari technician’s jacket.

It’s authentically Italian, and real Ferrari mechanics wear them when they work on real Ferraris.

I put it on, fell in love, and bought it, then realized it was a lab coat, only red.

The color of Ferraris.

And gravy.

It even has pockets on either side, for my cell phone and my dog treats.

So I can’t make the gravy, but now I have a gravy-colored lab coat.

Thanks, Mom.

Copyright © Lisa Scottoline 2025

The Tao of Eve

By Lisa Scottoline

I love sleeping with dogs.

But sleeping with a puppy is a different matter.

Let me explain.

You may know that I recently added a new member to my family, namely Eve, who is now a seven-month-old cavalier King Charles Spaniel. She joins my other two Cavaliers, Boone and Kit, who are almost fourteen now and differ on their opinion of her.

Boone loves Eve.

Kit wishes her dead.

I’m hoping he comes around.

Spoiler alert: He’s not going to.

But so far he’s not trying to kill her.

And Kit has his adorable moments with Eve. Like this morning, I took them out for a walk, and he peed on her leg.

By the way, it was raining.

So I actually got to watch a demonstration of “don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining.”

Which is the perfect description of my second marriage.

This is only one of the many great things about dogs.

In any event, I love sleeping with Eve, but she’s very busy all night long.

At this point you’re wondering why I don’t put her in a crate.

Because I tried to in the beginning, but she cried and I’m a big softie.

Luckily she’s never peed on the bed and told me it was raining, but she is an insanely restless sleeper.

First, she loved to bring her toys on the bed and squeak them most of the night.

I took away the squeaky ones, and she started playing with the ball, rolling it around the cover, then on my body.

I took away the ball, and she would jump off the bed and find my socks on the floor, bring them up, and drop them on my face.

Then I picked up all my socks and took away all the toys and she found a way to amuse herself, running up and down the ramp that leads to the bed.

I couldn’t take that away because I already felt heartless.

Plus how else do you get a dog onto a bed?

Where she will disrupt your sleep.

Obviously, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. The sensible thing to do would be to put the dog in a crate and a moat around the bed.

But not all decisions are sensible.

That’s why God made divorce.

Meanwhile every single piece of furniture in my house has either a ramp or a set of little wooden stairs, but Eve loves to chews wood, so she makes a meal of those stairs.

She’s on an all-wood diet.

She eats doors and baseboards, and now my place looks like I live with a woodchuck.

Now you’re probably asking, why don’t you spray the wood with that stuff called Bitter Apple, which is supposed to make dogs not chew wood?

The answer is, I do, and Eve thinks it improves the taste of wood.

It’s the dressing on her wood salad.

She would drink Bitter Apple if I let her.

And when she’s not eating wood, she’s running around outside, finding a rock, and chewing that, too.

In the beginning, I started taking the rocks from her and putting them on a pile on the table. Now the table holds a pyramid of rocks, like oranges at the grocery store.

I should sell rocks.

Or I could spray them with Bitter Apple, then Eve would have a rock casserole.

I took her to puppy kindergarten and puppy elementary school, and next week we start puppy middle school.

After that, puppy Harvard.

She learned all her lessons, including Leave It, which I now use forty-five times a day, when she finds a sock, chews wood, or eats a rock.

And she Leaves It.

Until she finds something else.

This is all by way of saying, I love this puppy.

She’s completely adorable, despite all the puppy things she does.

Or maybe because of them.

She’s simply an incredibly affectionate ball of fluff.

When she finally settles down to sleep at my side, she has an adorable snore.

She loves to snuggle and kiss, which is a job requirement for any animal I live with.

Actually she’s a Make-out Queen, but I won’t elaborate.

She loves people, other dogs, and fun in general.

All the time, every minute.

Even at night, but that’s okay.

Life is to be savored, all the time.

And that’s what Eve reminds me.

Copyright © Lisa Scottoline 2025

Column Classic: Mommy’s Day Out

by Francesca Serritella

The last time my mom came to visit, I lost her.

It was like that movie Baby’s Day Out, except with my parentI turned my back for one second, and the little rascal got away from me. 

I imagined her crawling along an I-beam at some high-rise construction site. 

But she’s afraid of heights, so more likely she’d be in Times Square, telling The Naked Cowboy he isn’t dressed warmly enough.

It started with tickets to see the new Larry David play.  My mom checked that she had the tickets for the third or fourth time. 

“It says, ‘late arrivals will not be seated,’” she read, for my benefit.  My mom is early to everything.  We left with an hour to spare.

And yet, we found ourselves in a cab crawling up Sixth Avenue for a half-hour with fifteen blocks to go.  I checked our route on my smartphone; the driving estimate to get to the theater was fifteen minutes, the walking was only ten.

“I think we should get out,” I said.

Click to read the full column on Francesca’s Website

Copyright © Francesca Serritella | www.francescaserritella.com | @FrancescaSerritellaauthor | @fserritella

Column Classic: The Mothership

By Lisa Scottoline

I’m a terrible negotiator.  I’m too emotional, and I can’t pretend I don’t want something I really want.

Like George Clooney.

But today we’re talking cars, and this is the tale of my first attempt at negotiating.

To begin, I have an older car that I take great care of, and it’s aged better than I have, sailing past 100,000 miles without estrogen replacement. 

But around 102,000 miles, things started to go wrong, and flaxseed wasn’t helping.  I knew I’d be driving long distances on book tour, and I started to worry.  I called up my genius assistant Laura to ask her advice, as I do before I make any important decision, like what to eat for lunch.

I asked her, “Laura, do you think I need a new car?”

“Yes.  Absolutely.”

“But it’s paid off, and I love it.”  And I do.  It’s a big white sedan called The Mothership.

“I know, but you have to be safe.  What if it breaks down on tour?”

“That won’t happen.”

“Except it has.  Twice.”

An excellent point.  One time, The Mothership died on the way to a bookstore in Connecticut, requiring the bookseller to pick me up at a truck-stop on 1-95.  I bet that never happened to James Patterson.

So I needed a new car, and since I love my dealership, I went there.  I thought they loved me, too, which they did, except when it came to the bottom line.  They gave me a good deal on a new SUV, but a rock-bottom price on trading in The Mothership.

I asked, “How can you do that to her?  I mean, me?”

I told you I get too emotional.

And I added, “Plus you’re supposed to love me.”

But they don’t.  They run a business, and it’s not the love business.  However, it’s my secret philosophy that all business is the love business, so I got angry.  They had taken care of The Mothership for the past ten years, at top dollar, and it was worth so much more. 

Guess what I did.

I walked out. 

I took my business elsewhere.  That very day, I called up another dealership, who said, come on over, we love you, too.  In fact, we love you so much that we’ll give you a better deal on your trade-in.  And they did, after inspecting The Mothership and calling her “the cleanest 100,000-mile car they had ever seen,” which we are. 

I mean, it is.

But just when I was about to say yes, my old dealership called and told me that they still loved me.  I told them I was already rebounding with my new dealership, but they said they’d top the offer on The Mothership, and after much back-and-forth, I went back to my old dealership, like ex sex.

But long story short, the day came when I was supposed to pick up my new SUV, and I felt unaccountably sad.  I took final pictures of The Mothership.  I stalled leaving the house.  On the drive to the dealer, I called daughter Francesca and asked her, “Wanna say good-bye to the car?”

“Mom?  You don’t sound happy.”

“I’m not.  I love this car.”

“Aww, it’s okay.  It’s probably not the car, anyway.  It’s that you have such great memories in the car.” 

I considered this for a minute.  “No, it’s the car.”

By the time I reached the dealership, I was crying full-bore, snot included. 

My sales guy came over, and when he saw me, his smile faded.  “What’s the matter?”

“I love my car.  I don’t want to give it up.”

“So keep it,” he said, which was the first time it even occurred to me.  I know it sounds dumb, but it simply never entered my mind.  I’d never bought a car without trading one in. 

“But what about the money?”

“We’re only offering you a fraction of what the car’s worth.  If I were you, I’d keep it.”    

“But I’m only one person.  Why do I need two cars?”

“They’re two different cars.  The old one’s a sedan, and the new one’s an SUV.”

I wiped my eyes.  “You mean, like shoes?  This is the dressy pair?”

He looked nonplussed.  “Uh, right.”

“Really?”  My heart leapt with happiness.  I decided to keep The Mothership.  It’s strappy sandals on wheels, if you follow.

Thus ended my first attempt at hardball negotiations, which backfired.  Having bargained for the best price on a trade-in, I couldn’t bring myself to trade anything in.

Because I love it.

It sits in my garage, aging happily.

Soon we’ll both be antique.

Priceless.

Copyright © Lisa Scottoline

Happy Mother’s Day

By Lisa Scottoline

Mother’s Day is almost here.

I’m already lactating.

Why?

Because I’m having a mommy-type moment that I wanted to share with you. Not only because it’s a cool thing that’s happening to me, but because it’s a little reminder that wonderful things can happen in a woman’s lifetime.

We begin way back when Daughter Francesca was born, and I quit my job as a lawyer because I really enjoyed being home with her. Lawyering didn’t work for me part time, and the months after her birth made me realize that raising her was simply the most important, and fun, thing I could do.

This all sounds great until you realize I was getting divorced and had zero money. So I decided to be a writer, and then followed five years living on credit cards while writing and getting rejected.

But meanwhile I got to stay home with Francesca, and I remember those early days so well, because the lack of money was beside the point. I was doing something I loved, being with this curly-haired, blue-eyed, baby, and watching her grow.

I remember after I’d put her down at night, she’d be in her crib, talking away.

I would stand outside her bedroom, listening, but I couldn’t make out any of the words. She was just yakking up a storm, in an extremely animated way.

This would last for hours.

So one day, when she was about four years old, I asked her, “Who are you talking to in your room at night?”

And she answered, “I’m telling myself my stories.”

Fast-forward a couple of decades later, when she actually becomes an author, and this summer, something remarkable is happening. Namely, my storyteller daughter has a novel coming out in August, entitled Full Bloom.

Plus I have a novel coming out in July, entitled The Unraveling of Julia.

This is a harmonic convergence for our tiny two-person family.

This summer, mother and daughter will be blooming and unraveling together.

You can pre-order our books now, and we’d be delighted if you would!

We’re even doing events together, and I can only imagine how proud my mother would be. She would curse with happiness, her highest form of self-expression.

For what it’s worth, I never pushed Francesca to be an author.

I pushed her to become a veterinarian.

I need a vet very badly.

Nor do I take any credit for her becoming an author, because the best storyteller in our family was Mother Mary. She could turn anything into a story, and she knew to keep it short, punchy and funny, just like her.

The day of her funeral, there was such a heavy rainstorm that my entrance hall flooded for the first and the last time ever. Francesca was sure it was a sign from her, and I agree.

Somehow, I know that my mother will show up at one of our signings this summer, heckle us, and/or do something vaguely obscene.

I can’t wait.

It reminds me of the saying that everything will be alright in the end, and if it’s not alright yet, then it’s not the end.

Well, this might be the end because everything’s alright.

And this author’s getting her own happy ending.

Thanks, Mom.

And thanks, Francesca

Happy Mother’s Day!

Copyright © Lisa Scottoline 2025