M.J. Pullen's Blog, page 5
July 9, 2018
Ready to Pre-Order SUGAR STREET for Kindle?
It can be hard to wait, can’t it? Once you’ve ordered a book and you must wait for it to magically appear on your device? For those ready to pre-order Sugar Street, I’ve compiled a list of some other fun women’s fiction titles you might enjoy.
Plus: If you’d like to go the extra mile to help Sugar Street launch into the world, it would be a huge help if you’d order one of these wonderful books at the same time. You’ll have something to read right away while you wait for Sugar Street, and Amazon will connect it with these books in its algorithm so that other readers can find it more easily.
So, if you’re an Amazon Kindle reader, here are some ways to pre-order and give me a helping hand at the same time!
Option 1:
Simply pre-Order Sugar Street using this link: Sugar Street: Funny Women’s Fiction with Serious Heart[image error]
~OR~
Option 2:
Click one of the book links below, add the selected book to your cart and then search for “Sugar Street by M.J. Pullen” to pre-order Sugar Street at the same time.
Matchmaking for Beginners: A Novel [image error]
How Hard Can It Be?: A Novel [image error]
The Perfect Couple [image error]
The Sometimes Sisters [image error]
Good Luck with That [image error]
Woman Last Seen in Her Thirties: A Novel
[image error]
Whichever option you choose, I wish you happy reading and thank you immensely for your support!
The post Ready to Pre-Order SUGAR STREET for Kindle? appeared first on MJ Pullen, Author.
Ready to Pre-Order SUGAR STREET for your Amazon Kindle?
It can be hard to wait, can’t it? Once you’ve ordered a book and you must wait for it to magically appear on your device? For those ready to pre-order Sugar Street, I’ve compiled a list of some other fun women’s fiction titles you might enjoy.
Plus: If you’d like to go the extra mile to help Sugar Street launch into the world, it would be a huge help if you’d order one of these wonderful books at the same time. You’ll have something to read right away while you wait for Sugar Street, and Amazon will connect it with these books in its algorithm so that other readers can find it more easily.
So…
Option 1:
Simply pre-Order Sugar Street using this link: Sugar Street: Funny Women’s Fiction with Serious Heart[image error]
~OR~
Option 2:
Click one of the book links below, add the selected book to your cart and then search for “Sugar Street by M.J. Pullen” to pre-order Sugar Street at the same time.
Matchmaking for Beginners: A Novel [image error]
How Hard Can It Be?: A Novel [image error]
The Perfect Couple [image error]
The Sometimes Sisters [image error]
Good Luck with That [image error]
Woman Last Seen in Her Thirties: A Novel
[image error]
Whichever option you choose, I wish you happy reading and thank you immensely for your support!
The post Ready to Pre-Order SUGAR STREET for your Amazon Kindle? appeared first on MJ Pullen, Author.
July 5, 2018
Goodreads Giveaway + SUGAR STREET Excerpt Now Available
Enter to win one of five (5) signed paperback ARCs of SUGAR STREET! As always, thank you for adding to your shelves and helping me spread the word about my latest novel. Sugar Street playful women’s fiction with fun domestic romance tucked neatly inside… 
And speaking of SUGAR STREET, I’m happy to say that you can now download an excerpt (the first two chapters) as a PDF. Get your excerpt here!
The post Goodreads Giveaway + SUGAR STREET Excerpt Now Available appeared first on MJ Pullen, Author.
July 2, 2018
It’s Here! The Kirkus Review of SUGAR STREET!
At the risk of being immodest… Well, it’s always nice when someone else thinks your baby is cute, too, isn’t it?
So… with minimal hesitation and since my mom isn’t around to show this to everyone (she totally, totally would’ve had a folded copy in her purse at all times — along with the faded black & white picture of me MISSING A PLAY AT THE PLATE that somehow made it into the Marietta Daily Journal when I played catcher on my high school softball team), I’m delighted to share this *glowing* Kirkus Review of Sugar Street!
Some of my favorite excerpts:
“A modern comedy of manners set in a posh Atlanta suburb follows a group of married women… The latest novel from Pullen (Regrets Only, 2016) opens with a fun, fizzy premise that reads like something straight out of Boccaccio’s Decameron: Some wives in the well-to-do Atlanta suburb of Sugar Mills are, for varying reasons, mildly unhappy in their blissful marriages.”
^^^ Glitzy Romp!
[TBH, I had to refresh myself on the Decameron. It’s been a minute since my last world literature course. Nothing says 14th Century Italian classic like suburban Atlanta dramedy, but I’ll take it!]
“…This is a classic comedic development that Pullen—a veteran of this kind of smart, sharp Jilly Cooper–style, guilty-pleasure fiction—manages to near perfection. In quick, confident strokes, she draws her characters in all their conflicting natures, from crass ambition to hapless confusion and everything in between.”
[Jilly Bloody Cooper! Blimey!]
And here’s the one I’m going to plaster everywhere:
“The author systematically dismantles the contentment of her very comfortable characters while also keeping the story bouncing with zippy, involving dialogue and a fine sense of dramatic pacing. A glitzy romp that features suburban wives making unconventional—and haphazardly disastrous—attempts to break out of the safe patterns of their lives.”
Let me tell you, “glitzy romp” beats the pants off “Lassiter player celebrates go-ahead run against Harrison 4-3 Tuesday. Late tag applied by Amanda Pullen.”
You can read the full review here. (Of the book. Not the game.)
And you can find pre-order/buy links for Sugar Street here. I’m not saying you should buy a copy, but there is a decent chance my mom is watching you from Heaven. So.
No pressure, or anything…
The post It’s Here! The Kirkus Review of SUGAR STREET! appeared first on MJ Pullen, Author.
June 20, 2018
SUGAR STREET now available for pre-order on iBooks!
Love reading playful, sexy women’s fiction on your iPad, Mac or iPhone? Wish someone would write a series that’s Sex and the City meets Desperate Housewives? Today is your day!
SUGAR STREET is now available for pre-order on iBooks! Release date: August 7, 2018.
In the idyllic Atlanta enclave of Sugar Mills, four women are struggling to keep their marriages alive in the hectic whirl of middle-class suburbia.
Adventurous Jess adores her sportswriter husband, but he’s more likely to fall asleep than respond to her creative attempts at seduction. Delia agreed to an open marriage when she had nothing to lose; but now that the reality of her choice has settled in, she feels a void no direct sales commission can fill. Infertility has left ex-tennis star Carras feeling powerless and frustrated. PTA president Maizy is desperate for acceptance in the Sugar Mills community, and with her health-conscious husband.
Enter Parker, a gorgeous young tennis pro moonlighting as a male escort. Could a little well-orchestrated jealousy cure the marital blues? Will a risky scheme put the spark back in their suburban marriages, or burn everything they’ve worked for to the ground?
Playful women’s fiction with relationships at its core, SUGAR STREET is a story about marriage, friendship and the wild hopes that lie beneath quiet desperation.
“This book is sugar and spice, and so many things… some of them not so nice. With its story of women willing to do everything to save their marriages, but ultimately saving themselves, M.J. Pullen’s SUGAR STREET sucked me in and wouldn’t let go until the very last page. If you’re looking for a riveting, rollicking, heartwarming story with a core of steel, don’t miss this gem!”
– Emily Carpenter, bestselling author of Burying the Honeysuckle Girls and Every Single Secret
This book is #1 in a planned series of five. I had the BEST time creating these characters and beginning their stories, and I hope you enjoy reading them!
The post SUGAR STREET now available for pre-order on iBooks! appeared first on MJ Pullen, Author.
May 28, 2018
Farewell, Vaneschewitz the Minivan
My Dear ,
March 2011I’m writing to thank you, with all my heart, for seven years of faithful service, and to say goodbye. You brought our youngest son home from the hospital. You endured the unglamorous rigors of carpool duty, from one-year-old preschool to third grade and then some. You helped me say goodbye to our elderly cat and to bring home Zelda and Zora the Wonderpups to join the family.
As a family, we took vacations to Callaway Gardens and the beach and the ballpark and Cincinnati and Washington DC. You and I rode together to the hospital late at night with the windows down when the baby had the croup and couldn’t breathe and I was more panicked than I’d ever been. You kept me on the road. You let me sit in your seat and cry when my Dad died and I had postpartum depression and I just needed to pound on the steering wheel and play Janis Joplin SO VERY LOUD.
You were never quite beautiful, but always a welcome sight (we have that in common, I think), especially to a family loaded down with groceries, exhausted from a day at Disney World, dirty from baseball practice or sweaty from gymnastics or Jazzercise. Hiding out from gale force winds at a rain-drenched campsite. Your seats and carpets were stained with everything from applesauce to coffee to blueberry smoothies and more coffee.
You and I logged hundreds of miles together on “nap drives,” in which I sometimes felt we were locked into some weird alternate existence together, away from the world: both of us giving up more sensible or utilitarian activities for the common goal of keeping the road noise coming and the toddler(s) mercifully snoozing. Those days, I came to rely on you as a friend in the way only a parent of young children can understand.
You were with me in the fancy neighborhood when Skywalker fell asleep with a McDonald’s hamburger in his mouth and I had to pull over to scoop it out and keep him from choking. We both heard the Frozen soundtrack so many times that I suspect if someone reconnects your old battery one day, that will be the first thing that comes out of your broken speakers. (Actually, it will probably be the Billy Jonas CD[image error] that is still in the player, the one the kids have asked for almost daily for the last nine months, the one we couldn’t get back after the accident. Don’t worry, I’m ordering a new copy.)
You weren’t an SUV, but no one told you that. You took the camping trips and mountain roads in stride, same for the 1.5-hour commute to Buckhead, where you’d stand among the flashier, less “maternal” cars in the corporate parking deck just like you owned the place. You never let them make you feel less than you were. You never shied away from the soccer mom image, the Star Wars family decals, the school/sports/chess magnets on the bumper I always SWORE I would never put on ANY car of mine. [Pause for laughter from veteran parents.] You and I learned about motherhood–and about putting others first–together.
You weren’t exactly unique–more than once I wandered up to the wrong slate-gray Toyota Sienna in some suburban parking lot–but you were ours, and we loved you. And the is still one of the most popular posts I’ve ever written. (You inspired others, too – like this one and this one.)
May 2018Now, we say goodbye. Thank you for 119,000+ miles of great and mundane and sad and happy and occasionally terrifying. Thank you for crumpling in all the right places when the bigger van slammed into us at the red light, for keeping me from being seriously injured.
I know it’s stupid to think so, but after all those years of nap drives and family errands and singing along to kids’ music, I’d like to think you’re as glad as I am that the boys weren’t with us when it happened. You would have protected them if they had been, I know. But from one maternal type to another, I’m glad it was just the two of us this time around.
My friend Rob, who suggested the name we gave you, is a car guy. He texted me this when he learned you were totaled: “A moment of silence for Vaneschewitz. She was a good ship….sturdy….” And he’s right. But to our little family, you were so much more than that. You were a constant at the center of our family life. Taken for granted, almost invisible, and loved all the more dearly because you never minded.
Farewell, my friend. Here’s hoping Minivan Heaven is the kind of place where they keep your tires at the right pressure, there’s no dog hair stuck in your carpet or crusty french fries wedged between your seats, and where that expensive synthetic oil you like flows in rivers…
You were a good ship. Sturdy. Boring. Beloved.
Love,
The Pullen-Turetsky Family
The post Farewell, Vaneschewitz the Minivan appeared first on MJ Pullen, Author.
Farewell, Vaneschewitz
My Dear ,
March 2011I’m writing to thank you, with all my heart, for seven years of faithful service, and to say goodbye. You brought our youngest son home from the hospital. You endured the unglamorous rigors of carpool duty, from one-year-old preschool to third grade and then some. You helped me say goodbye to our elderly cat and to bring home Zelda and Zora the Wonderpups to join the family.
As a family, we took vacations to Callaway Gardens and the beach and the ballpark and Cincinnati and Washington DC. You and I rode together to the hospital late at night with the windows down when the baby had the croup and couldn’t breathe and I was more panicked than I’d ever been. You kept me on the road. You let me sit in your seat and cry when my Dad died and I had postpartum depression and I just needed to pound on the steering wheel and play Janis Joplin SO VERY LOUD.
You were never quite beautiful, but always a welcome sight (we have that in common, I think), especially to a family loaded down with groceries, exhausted from a day at Disney World, dirty from baseball practice or sweaty from gymnastics or Jazzercise. Hiding out from gale force winds at a rain-drenched campsite. Your seats and carpets were stained with everything from applesauce to coffee to blueberry smoothies and more coffee.
You and I logged hundreds of miles together on “nap drives,” in which I sometimes felt we were locked into some weird alternate existence together, away from the world: both of us giving up more sensible or utilitarian activities for the common goal of keeping the road noise coming and the toddler(s) mercifully snoozing. Those days, I came to rely on you as a friend in the way only a parent of young children can understand.
You were with me in the fancy neighborhood when Skywalker fell asleep with a McDonald’s hamburger in his mouth and I had to pull over to scoop it out and keep him from choking. We both heard the Frozen soundtrack so many times that I suspect if someone reconnects your old battery one day, that will be the first thing that comes out of your broken speakers. (Actually, it will probably be the Billy Jonas CD[image error] that is still in the player, the one the kids have asked for almost daily for the last nine months, the one we couldn’t get back after the accident. Don’t worry, I’m ordering a new copy.)
You weren’t an SUV, but no one told you that. You took the camping trips and mountain roads in stride, same for the 1.5-hour commute to Buckhead, where you’d stand among the flashier, less “maternal” cars in the corporate parking deck just like you owned the place. You never let them make you feel less than you were. You never shied away from the soccer mom image, the Star Wars family decals, the school/sports/chess magnets on the bumper I always SWORE I would never put on ANY car of mine. [Pause for laughter from veteran parents.] You and I learned about motherhood–and about putting others first–together.
You weren’t exactly unique–more than once I wandered up to the wrong slate-gray Toyota Sienna in some suburban parking lot–but you were ours, and we loved you. And the is still one of the most popular posts I’ve ever written. (You inspired others, too – like this one and this one.)
May 2018Now, we say goodbye. Thank you for 112,000+ miles of great and mundane and sad and happy and occasionally terrifying. Thank you for crumpling in all the right places when the bigger van slammed into us at the red light, for keeping me from being seriously injured.
I know it’s stupid to think so, but after all those years of nap drives and family errands and singing along to kids’ music, I’d like to think you’re as glad as I am that the boys weren’t with us when it happened. You would have protected them if they had been, I know. But from one maternal type to another, I’m glad it was just the two of us this time around.
My friend Rob, who suggested the name we gave you, is a car guy. He texted me this when he learned you were totaled: “A moment of silence for Vaneschewitz. She was a good ship….sturdy….” And he’s right. But to our little family, you were so much more than that. You were a constant at the center of our family life. Taken for granted, almost invisible, and loved all the more dearly because you never minded.
Farewell, my friend. Here’s hoping Minivan Heaven is the kind of place where they keep your tires at the right pressure, there’s no dog hair stuck in your carpet or crusty french fries wedged between your seats, and where that expensive synthetic oil you like flows in rivers…
You were a good ship. Sturdy. Boring. Beloved.
Love,
The Pullen-Turetsky Family
The post Farewell, Vaneschewitz appeared first on MJ Pullen, Author.
May 9, 2018
Exclusive: A Murdered Darling from SUGAR STREET
You’ve probably heard the expression, “kill your darlings,” that common writer’s advice derived from the original “murder your darlings” in a 1913 writer’s guide by Arthur Quiller-Couch.* I 
recently re-read Stephen King’s On Writing, in which he referred to the concept this way: “kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.”
*Who was Arthur Quiller-Couch? I didn’t know either.
Essentially, the idea is that to tell the best story in the best way, writers must often dispose of pieces of our work that are precious to us, but which no longer fit the story as we originally imagined it. Sometimes it’s a hilarious or poignant scene, sometimes a clever line of dialogue. Sometimes (and this is the hardest) it’s the entire reason you started writing this piece to begin with. It’s easy enough to acknowledge in theory that sometimes the path diverges from our original purpose. It’s harder to actually highlight and delete that text, the seed from which our story was born, now overshadowed by the bigger story we discovered.
This is why I keep a “Murdered Darlings” file for every novel I write, so I can cut and paste those pages of text into a safe warm place and tell myself I can go back for them if I need them. I almost never need them.
Today, I’m sharing a bit of the first SUGAR STREET novel that has been particularly hard to part with. Not because it’s the basis for the book (though you could argue that the themes in this passage do permeate the novel); but because it feels so personal to me. I know both of these women. I love both of these women. In many ways, I am each of them.
So I have skimmed over this passage at least ten times in the editing process, knowing that I need to cut it–it doesn’t belong in that spot in the book and I’m too wordy anyway–but avoiding it, because it rings so true to me.
Well, I can’t avoid any longer. It’s time to put my hands around this passage’s throat and hold it down until it stops kicking. But I’m sharing it here, in the hopes that it might ring true to you, too…
Jess didn’t mind Maizy, particularly. The woman was awkward sometimes, and her excellence at all things kid- and school-related was annoying. It probably didn’t help, Jess thought as she swiped and missed at Parker’s next serve, that Maizy was the picture of everything Jess had failed to be as a parent.
Back when she decided to stay home with the kids and work part time, Jess had imagined a whole world of mommyhood opening up for her. She would make her own organic baby food, use Pinterest to keep her home organized from closets to cabinets, to have regular playdates at the park with other moms. She imagined little Mina, and later Dash, having close-knit friends from the time they were toddlers; and the parents of those friends would become Jess and Tom’s social support network. They would host joint barbecues in alternating backyards, trade off babysitting for date nights, take family vacations together as a big cohesive group.
But it turned out that making friends as an adult was no easier than it had been in middle school. Jess lost count of the number of times she’d excitedly scheduled a play date, only to find she had nothing in common with the other moms except the ages of their children. And the few people she grew to like, including Delia, often had children older than Mina and Dash; or like Carras, had no children at all.
Kids were exhausting. And the part-time work Jess imagined would take just two or three hours a day ended up spread over ten or twelve hours, competing with unending laundry, dishes, and the inevitable disasters that cropped up every time she sat down with her laptop.
When Mina started Mother’s Morning Out at the local preschool, Jess was sure of having three hours of uninterrupted work time, three times a week. But within two weeks of starting the program, Mina began a string of illnesses, presumably from her first exposure to preschool germs, which had her absent from the program more days than she went. By the time Mina’s health had recovered and her immune system was strong enough, Jess was pregnant with Dash and could barely function herself. She needed those Mother’s Morning Out hours for napping, vomiting profusely, and crying in the bathtub. Needless to say, her Pinterest dreams took a far backseat to the part time work she was already struggling to complete for her clients.
She did make organic baby food, once. She got every pot and pan in the kitchen dirty, only to produce about ten jars of food. When Tom got home that evening, his delight that she had cooked turned to disappointment that she had not cooked for the two of them, and they still had to order pizza and do the dishes.
Jess learned that she had to stop reading the mommy blogs, especially the crafty, solution-oriented parenting blogs with tasteful clean designs and pictures of perfect families in quaint woodland settings at sunset. She unfollowed the Paleo moms, the yoga moms, the homeschool moms, and the DIY moms—all the inspiration she had turned to when she was planning what her life would be like. She learned to ignore the themed birthday parties with elaborate sculptures made of fruit in fun shapes, and the super thoughtful hand-stamped Valentines, party favors, Halloween gifts that some moms whipped out on demand. Jess learned that some women were simply wired this way, whether they worked outside the home or not.
Maizy was, Jess suspected, one of these. She was not only the PTA president and the best, most prolific baker in the county; she volunteered at the school constantly, and served as a substitute teacher. It was completely unfair for Jess to resent Maizy’s genetic predisposition for super-parenting and school involvement. But there was something perfect and smug about Maizy Henricksson. And her perfect, smug brownies.
This is a deleted excerpt from the novel SUGAR STREET, which will be available August 7, 2018.
Sign up here to be notified when the book is available for pre-order (click on “updates” or “book announcements.”)
The post Exclusive: A Murdered Darling from SUGAR STREET appeared first on MJ Pullen, Author.
April 23, 2018
Happy World Book Day! Time for Literary Mad Libs
April 23, 2018It’s World Book Day! Time to hang up your book stockings and gather round the old book tree for songs and presents, which are of course ALL BOOKS…
Okay, is it just me or does that sound like the best holiday ever?
I am celebrating World Book Day this year by hosting some literary Mad Libs on my facebook page. Some of you remember helping me create some fun Mad Libs with my own books back in January. Well, today we’re doing the same thing with a few literary classics!
To play along, all you have to do is visit the Facebook Event Page and RSVP “Going” (you don’t actually have to be there at the prescribed time, but marking yourself as Going will allow you to get notifications when there’s a new post).
Scroll down through the event and look for the graphics with book titles in them. Each one has instructions, but it’s pretty simple: you just let me know you’re there and want to play, I give you a part of speech, and you give me back the funniest or most random word you can think of in return!
Then tune in to my Facebook Page at 3:00 PM and 8:00 PM Eastern tonight (April 23rd) where I’ll be reading off the new literary classics we’ve created on my Monday Mug Facebook live videos. I’ll also be picking winners to give away fun prizes to those who comment, share, and play along.
Hope to see you over on Facebook for this fun, new, totally made-up World Book Day tradition. Happy reading!
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April 7, 2018
Batter Up! Baseball = Family Memories
Early April is gorgeous in Georgia, if you can see it through your watering eyes from all the pollen… Okay, I know some of you are still experiencing bitter cold, so I’ll try not to complain about the fact that I’m pretty sure the insides of my lungs look like the fuzzy fabric on the outside a tennis ball. *cough, cough*
Instead, I’ll just be excited that it’s opening week for baseball! My boys were on spring break this week, so we went to an afternoon Braves game in the chilly 50-degree weather. [Insert eye rolls from everyone shoveling snow in the more northern areas of the world.] I love baseball, and I’ve been a Braves fan since before I was old enough to do the Tomahawk Chop.My maternal grandfather, Papa Charlie, was my favorite person in the world until he passed away when I was ten. Papa Charlie was a Braves fan from waaaay back, when the team was still in Milwaukee, and he remembered exactly where he was when Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s home run record. [Incidentally, my mother-in-law was at that game, and I’m pretty sure I married the only Braves fan bigger than my grandfather.]
Making new memories (without the black socks)!Some of my fondest childhood memories are of Papa Charlie, watching the games from his cushy blue recliner, yelling at the TV like he was a very distant but important bench coach. Recliner coach. I would lie stretched out on the carpet in front of him, writing terrible kid-poetry in my Harriet the Spy notebook and trying to understand the game.
He’d walk by on his way to the kitchen, and gently step on my foot with his (which, pursuant to secret agreement signed by old men everywhere, was always adorned with black dress socks, even if he was in his pajamas). Then he’d pretend he didn’t do it. That was it: simplest joke in the world, and it never got old for either of us. I loved him so much.
It broke my heart when he died; and it was pretty much in our prenuptial agreement that Hubs and I would name our first son Charlie if we were lucky enough to have one. [We were and we did. And our little Charlie loves the Braves just like his namesake great-grandfather.]
Years later, when my grandmother’s health was failing, I remember Hubs and I sat with her on the couch one evening, with the Braves game on in the background. She had all her mental faculties still, but didn’t talk much by then… I think she was tired of being fussed over all the time, and tired in general. So we were sitting on the couch and suddenly Grandma B stiffened, bolt upright, and leaned forward. Hubs and I panicked a little and asked her if she was okay, and she shooed us away and said, “I’m fine. But when the HELL are they going to do something about that bullpen?”
