Michelle Blanchard Ardillo

Everyone knows the saying, “Like mother, like daughter,” or “Like father, like son.” We all inherit certain traits and characteristics from our parents and pass on some of them to our own children. In my case, though, it is more like, “Like father, like daughter.” My father was a first-class storyteller. Sometimes they started out as a story but in reality were really jokes he either had heard or made up. He had a million of them, and my brothers and I had heard the best ones over and over. I can retell his best-selling playlist almost verbatim, even pausing at the same place for maximum effect. Boy, do I miss him.

The one thing that was passed down to me from my mother was a strong work ethic. She graduated from high school and went on to what was called secretarial school, now called a junior business college. She graduated as the fastest typist in the history of the school. ON A MANUAL TYPEWRITER. She never made errors. She could multitask as an Olympic sport. When she got home from work as a legal secretary for the local judge in my hometown, she had already stopped at the grocery store, come into the house with a bag full of groceries, and with her purse still on her arm and still dressed in her professional office attire, put the groceries away and started dinner. The house was always clean, everything was ironed from my dad’s shirts and pants to all of the linens, and she even mowed the lawn because she said she enjoyed it. (I think she was just trying to get away from my brothers and me since we were always fighting, lol.) Boy, do I miss her.

All that being said, I am most efficient and effective when I am at work. I crave direction, deadlines, and time limits. I love authority, whether I am in charge or reporting to someone in charge. This is well-evidenced by the fact that after twenty years in my FIRST career as a paralegal, which I loved, I changed careers and became a teacher. In my SECOND career, I’ve worked in Catholic education for twenty years, and I’ve loved it. Yet, I have retired FOUR times from teaching. Something always brings me back…a vacancy that can’t be filled, a change in administration that requires an extra teacher, even if part-time, etc. I just don’t do well without a schedule, and school bells ringing every forty minutes was just the ticket for me. 

This could be a problem in what I’ve decided is my THIRD career, that of a writer. I’ve been freelancing since 2015, writing articles and essays for regional magazines, publishing personal essays and book reviews on my website, and taking classes in writing fiction. I have a GREAT idea for a novel, and I’ve outlined it (many times). I’ve written about 7,000 words of it and yet it is still dangling–unfinished–in cyberspace. 

One problem with getting this novel written however is what I’ve described here: I need structure. I know what I want to do, but something always gets in the way. Sometimes it’s my most favorite thing in the world, reading. And, when I read a book that I love, like this book, Like Mother, Like Mother, I am very angry when I finish it. I want to produce something that makes someone else feel like I do when I read a book that I love like this one.

Susan Rieger’s third novel is a multi-generational story with a backstory that is difficult to read. There are some triggers that readers should be aware of: primarily, child abuse and domestic violence, but also grief and loss. It is also the story of some very strong-willed women, and how they do—or don’t—balance family life and work. It is very well written, the dialogue is fresh and authentic. The story draws you in from the very first two sentences: 

“Lila Pereira died on the front page of The Washington Globe. She also died on the front page of The New York Times, astonishing and gratifying The Globe’s publisher, Doug Marshall.” 

The characters are all (or nearly all) well-developed, even though there are quite a few names to remember. The author has kindly given a list of the characters at the start of the book, and it includes how they connect with the main characters of the novel. 

I loved this book. I couldn’t wait to get back to my Kindle throughout the day to read more, and I stayed up way too late two nights in a row because I just couldn’t put it down. If you enjoyed Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano, I think you will also enjoy this one. One reviewer on Goodreads said that she will be “thinking about Lila, Grace, and Zelda for a long time.” I feel exactly the same way, but most of all, I keep thinking about how I can capture that same exact feeling and transfer it to my own writing. Susan Rieger, do you offer any writing workshops? Please get in touch if you do! 

Thank you to NetGalley and Will Lyman of Random House Publishing for the ARC of this new novel! I really, really loved reading it and I am so happy to have discovered Susan Rieger’s work! I can’t wait to read her other two novels.

Like Mother, Like Mother will be published and out for sale on October 29, 2024!