Best Friends, Occasional Enemies: The Lighter Side of Life as a Mother and Daughter (Reading Group Gold) (25 page)

Thanks to
The Philadelphia Inquirer,
which publishes our “Chick Wit” column every Sunday, and to our editor, the wonderful Sandy Clark.

One of the biggest hearts in creation belongs to Laura Leonard, and her friendship sustains us. We love you, Laura, and thank you for helping us every day, in every way, and with this book. Laura keeps us straight on every line, and thanks so much for that. Plus you’re a great mom, and you raised us both.

Love to our girlfriends, a conspiracy of moms and daughters, among them Nan Daley and Nora and Jolie Demchur, Paula Menghetti and Bev, Tori, and Alex, Franca Palumbo and Jessica Limbacher, and of course, Molly Friedrich and Julia, Lucy, and Pi-qui Carson. We’ve all watched each other grow up, and we’re blessed in that, and so much else.

Family is the heart of this book, because family is the heart of everything. Thanks and all our love to Mother Mary and Brother Frank, who deserves a book unto himself. We still miss every day the late Frank Scottoline, but he is with us always.

Finally, we knew we were lucky before we wrote this book, but we’re most lucky in our readers, who have shared our stories and even told us some of their own, in email and on tour. You’re family now, too.

We’re stuck with each other, from now on. And for that, we extend our sincerest thanks to each of you, and our love.

This is a hug.

Other Nonfiction by Lisa Scottoline and Francesca Serritella

My Nest Isn’t Empty, It Just Has More Closet Space

Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog

Fiction by Lisa Scottoline

Save Me

Think Twice

Look Again

Lady Killer

Daddy’s Girl

Dirty Blonde

Devil’s Corner

Killer Smile

Dead Ringer

Courting Trouble

The Vendetta Defense

Moment of Truth

Mistaken Identity

Rough Justice

Legal Tender

Running from the Law

Final Appeal

Everywhere That Mary Went

About the Authors

LISA SCOTTOLINE is the
New York Times
bestselling and Edgar Award–winning author of eighteen novels. She has 25 million copies of her books in print in the United States, and she has been published in twenty-five countries. She is currently serving as the president of the Mystery Writers of America. She lives in Philadelphia with an array of disobedient pets. Visit
www.scottoline.com
.

FRANCESCA SERRITELLA graduated cum laude from Harvard University, where she won the Thomas Temple Hoopes Prize, the Le Baron Russell Briggs Fiction Prize, and the Charles Edmund Horman Prize for her creative writing. Her writing has appeared in
Cosmopolitan,
and she is working on a novel. She lives in New York with only one dog, so far. Visit
www.francescaserritella.com
.

BEST FRIENDS, OCCASIONAL ENEMIES.
Copyright © 2011 by Smart Blonde, LLC, and Francesca Scottoline Serritella. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

All photographs courtesy of the authors except where noted.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Scottoline, Lisa.

Best friends, occasional enemies : the lighter side of life as a mother and daughter / Lisa Scottoline and Francesca Serritella. — 1st ed.

p.    cm.

e-ISBN: 978-1-4299-9557-3

  1.  Mothers and daughters—Humor. 2. Women—Humor.   3.  Scottoline, Lisa.   4.  Serritella, Francesca Scottoline.   I.  Serritella, Francesca Scottoline.   II.  Title.

PN6231.M68S37 2011

818'.5402—dc23

2011025863

First Edition: November 2011