Spotlight & Giveaway: Sisters and Secrets by Jennifer Ryan

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Jennifer Ryan to HJ!

Hi Jennifer and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, Sisters and Secrets!

 
Thank you so much for inviting me. I’m excited to be here.
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

Sisters and Secrets is about the Silva sisters – Sierra, Amy, and Heather. Sierra and her two sons lost everything in a wildfire and is moving home to her mother’s to get her life together. Amy’s a perfectionist whose kids hate their over-scheduled lives and her husband hates being scheduled out of their lives. Heather is a single mom with a carefree lifestyle but not the husband and father she wants in her life. They all have a secret that once revealed has the power to break or bond the family – and alter destinies.
 

Please share your favorite line(s) or quote from this book:

One of my favorite scenes is when Sierra and Amy are talking about their sister and what she did to Sierra. It’s a great example of how siblings side with each other, but also don’t want to have strife between all of them.

One day it wouldn’t hurt this much.
There’d come a time when the anger didn’t come in a rush and consume her.
One day it would be a memory that didn’t sting so sharply.
Her happiness would overshadow the pain and betrayal.
“So I spoke to Mom this morning after she went to see Heather. We hate Heather, right?” Amy held up a glass of wine from her Adirondack chair in the garden.
Sierra took the glass, fell into the other chair, stared at the beautiful flowers, focusing on the pretty pink roses, and sighed. “I don’t want to hate either of them, but they make it damn hard not to.”

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• The original title was – The Silva Sisters’ Secrets. We changed it when the distributor thought the title was too fussy – so I suggested we simplify it to Sisters and Secrets. They loved it. And so did I.
• The wildfire that displaces Sierra originally happened in my previous book – The Me I Used to Be (also a standalone novel).
• Mason has a barn cat named Tom. Sierra remembers the cat from high school, but no, this is Tom the third. Mason names all the barn cats Tom.
• The book is set in Carmel, California, where my husband and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary.

What first attracts your Hero to the Heroine and vice versa?

Sierra and Mason were neighbors and best friends who never crossed that line until Sierra got engaged and Mason realized he loved her. But he never spoke up. They’re drawn to each other because of the past they share and the future they both want together. Sierra loves Mason’s open honesty. Mason is drawn to Sierra’s kind heart and love of family.

Did any scene have you blushing, crying or laughing while writing it? And Why?

This one is hard, because I don’t want to give away any of the secrets…But…the most real thing I hope I captured in the book is a conversation between Amy and her husband about the state of their marriage.

“You get to be the fun parent. I’m the one who disciplines and has to do all the real work.”

The shirt hung wide open, exposing his gorgeous chiseled chest. “Is that so? I guess my bringing home the paycheck and keeping a roof over our heads and food on the table isn’t real work at all. It’s just me being selfish and spending time away from you.”

She sighed. “That’s not what I mean.”

They’d agreed when they decided to have children that she’d quit her job and be a full-time mom. They’d wanted their children to come home to a parent after school and not be stuck at some daycare for hours. Financially, it made sense, because daycare would have eaten up most of her salary anyway.

She didn’t mind giving up the job. She just never expected taking care of the kids and the house would take up every waking moment and not leave her any room for herself.
She expected Rex to feel pressure as the sole breadwinner, but she never expected him to feel burdened by it, or that he’d think she didn’t appreciate how hard he worked for them.

“You resent me for going to work. Then you resent me for not spending enough time with the kids and not paying attention to you. Well, I resent that you use my job as an excuse to make me feel guilty for not being here. I resent that you make your life and the kids so busy you don’t have time for me. I resent that you think you and the kids have to be doing something for everyone to see instead of just hanging out together as a family. I resent that when I asked you to spend more time with me, to go out on a date, you volunteered to babysit your sister’s kids instead.”

Exasperated, she spit out the obvious. “She needed my help.”

“She wanted an evening alone with the guy she’s seeing. Great. Good for her. But if you had told her we had plans, she would have hired a babysitter or picked a different day. Better yet, you could have called the sitter to watch all the kids and made time for me.”

“Four kids for one sitter,” she scoffed.

“Why not? You have it in your head that you’re the only one who can handle four kids. You’re the only one who can volunteer in the classroom or organize the bake sale or 5k charity run. You’re the only one who can do everything at school and home and for our kids. I’m really not sure what you need me for anymore.” Rex stormed past her and slammed the bathroom door. A few seconds later, he turned on the shower.

They were home alone for the first time in months with at least an hour before the kids returned and instead of falling naked into bed, they were fighting.

Readers should read this book….

If you love a big family drama filled with secrets, second chances, and romance, you’ll love Sisters and Secrets!

What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have in the works?

I’ve completed my next romance series. The McGraths.
Waiting on a Cowboy (8/18/20)
Love of a Cowboy (Spring 2020)
True Love Cowboy (Fall 2020)

I’m currently writing my summer 2020 women’s fiction release – Unbroken Promises.
 
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: A set of THE ME I USED TO BE and SISTERS AND SECRETS paperbacks, US only.

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: Do you find it easier or harder to keep secrets from your siblings/family?

 
a Rafflecopter giveaway

 
 

Excerpt from Sisters and Secrets:

Sisters and Secrets…

“…I always preferred hanging out with you.”

“Funny how we never took it further back then.”

“Maybe we always knew there was time and we’d be together eventually.”

Sierra’s heart sped up. “I think you’re right. And I can prove it.” She grabbed his hand and led him to the shed they used as a little cabin. She didn’t hesitate to push the door open and step inside. Memories assailed her as she stared at the board games stacked on a bookshelf, the old afghan and mismatched pillows on the old leather sofa, the blue and cream braided rug on the floor they sat on during countless card games, bowls of snacks spread around them.

But it was the dozens of pictures they’d tacked up on the walls over the years that caught and held her attention.

She spotted the one she remembered this morning and walked over to it, Mason right behind her. She plucked the old Polaroid from the wall, the tack still stuck in the top. She turned to him and showed him the picture of the two of them sitting on the small dock that stretched into the pond that they used to jump off all time.

They were sitting so close together their shoulders and arms touched. She was looking up at him and he was looking down at her, both of them smiling.

She traced her finger over the picture. “I don’t even remember someone taking this shot of us.”
They’d often been lost in conversation together, avoiding everyone else, happy to just keep things between the two of them.

“It could have been taken any number of days.”

He bumped his arm to her shoulder. “We spent a lot of time together. I’d bring my friends out here. You and your sisters would have yours. It was always a party. Nothing wild. Just fun.”

“I really loved our friendship. I had my sisters, but somehow you were always easier to talk to and be around.”

“I was an only child. I liked hanging out with you guys. It was better than being alone at the ranch. And you liked doing everything I liked to do.”

“But there’s something else that’s special about this picture that I remembered this morning.
Even back then, I think I knew we’d always be together.” She turned the picture over and showed him what she’d written on the back. Inside a big red heart she wrote Sierra + Mason.

“I don’t know why I wrote it like this. We were just friends, but I knew I loved you. Not the way I do now. It’s so much bigger now, but still…”

He linked his fingers with hers. “We laid the foundation. Now we’re both ready to build on the love that started all those years ago.”

“You get it. I know it’s sappy.” But she didn’t care.

“No it’s not.” He tapped the picture. “Sometimes we wish for something and feel like it will never come true. Maybe that’s how you felt when we didn’t take things to the next level back then.

But here we are back together and getting married.”

Her smile came fast and filled with joy. “We’re getting married!”

He tapped the photo. “Because Sierra plus Mason equals a whole lot of love.” He kissed her then, drawing it out, letting her feel how much he loved her.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Book Info:

If you love Jill Shalvis and Susan Mallery, then you won’t want to miss this newest novel by New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Ryan.

There’s nothing more complicated than the relationship among family…Especially when the Silva Sisters are keeping secrets.

For Sierra it means returning home with her two little boys after a devastating Napa wildfire takes her home, her job, and even the last mementos of her late husband, David. Determined to start over, how can she ever reveal the truth—that her husband may have led a double life?

To the world, Amy’s world is perfect: handsome husband, delightful children, an Instagram-worthy home. But behind this facade lies an awful truth: her marriage is rocky, her children resentful, her home on the verge of breaking up.

Heather, impulsive, free-spirited, and single mom to an adorable little girl, lives for the moment wearing a carefree smile. But she refuses to reveal the truth about her daughter’s father, and his identity remains a mystery even to her family.

As the Silva Sisters secrets are revealed, each realizes that there is more to their family than meets the eyes…and forgiveness may be the only way to move forward and reclaim true happiness at last.

Sisters and Secrets is a moving novel of sisterhood, second chances, and the secrets that have the power to break or bond families—and alter destinies.
Book Links: Book Links: Amazon | B&N | iTunes | kobo | Google |
 
 

Meet the Author:

New York Times & USA Today bestselling author JENNIFER RYAN writes suspenseful contemporary romances about everyday people who do extraordinary things. Her deeply emotional love stories are filled with high stakes and higher drama, love, family, friendship, and the happily-ever-after we all hope to find.

Jennifer lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and three children. When she finally leaves those fictional worlds, you’ll find her in the garden, playing in the dirt and daydreaming about people who live only in her head, until she puts them on paper.
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