Set in the cutthroat and neck-lifted world of private school parenting in Los Angeles, Moms Like Us is a comedic cautionary tale about how far mothers will go to protect their children, and their secrets.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Jordan Roter’s Moms Like Us, which is out May 6th 2025.
That someone might end up dead at the Palms School’s annual glamping trip in Santa Barbara wasn’t far-fetched. Taking city people into the woods was begging for murder. What was surprising was how far these mothers would go to cover it up.
Meet our moms: Milly craves recognition from her mommunity for devoting herself to the school; Jillian is terrified that her daughter won’t get into their preferred private middle school, or any school; Dawn just returned to LA after being banished with her canceled husband and their son, and wants her old life back; and Heather, who secretly engineered Dawn’s husband’s fall from grace, is shocked that they have returned and, worse, are up for membership at her private tennis club. Over her dead body.
In the ferocious, manicured world of the wealthy and well intentioned, how long can secrets stay hidden, and how far will these women go to protect their children, their reputations, and their darkest desires?
PROLOGUE
As with all fires, this one started small.
A burning bush, if you will.
(Not to get too biblical or anything.)
The plan, if you could call it a “plan,” was simple: a controlled fire to burn the evidence.
Now, control was a word these LA women—all mothers of private, progressive, constructivist, elementary school children—knew well because the struggle was real . . . for them. And these women had seen enough Shonda Rhimes shows to understand they needed to cover up the evidence, to conceal the murder.
But was it a murder?
Murder was such an extreme and, frankly, polarizing word, so they tried to avoid using it. This was an accidental death. For the most part.
It was definitely a death. That was something they could all agree upon.
Whatever they called it—and they did hesitate to label anything because “Label is libel”—a corpse lay there, along with some other incriminating evidence, and these women knew they each had a motive (or multiple motives); they had each behaved badly, so very badly, so they could each be held responsible or accountable in some way; and none of them trusted the others to tell the truth or uphold the lie. So they did what they assumed anyone in their position would do: burn it all down.
The fire—as fires do—spread quickly, nothing controlled about it, and the women ran away faster than a sprint in a Peloton tread class.
What none of them noticed at the time was the bloodstained vintage L.L.Bean flannel hanging from a tree branch, the only piece of evidence that might ultimately survive and could possibly spark suspicion.
The women seamlessly blended into the trail of expensive hybrid SUVs and Teslas, leaving the Southern California glampground that night as it burned behind them, ending what was supposed to have been a weekend of celebration and healing for the Palms School community.
For many, the fact that someone might end up dead at the annual glamping trip didn’t actually seem that far-fetched. Taking city people (from Los Angeles, no less!) into the woods was basically begging for murder.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves, aren’t we?
THE PALMS SCHOOL MISSION STATEMENT
Inclusive of a multicultural, anti-racist community of experiential learning and critical, compassionate thinking, the Palms School is devoted to progressive learning and respecting children’s individuality by challenging our students to discover meaning and significance in the world around them while also preparing them to impact the world as educated, thoughtful, inquisitive, kind, philanthropic global citizens for a lifetime.
Est. 1995
PART I
Six Months Earlier . . .
Back to School Night
September was hands down Milly’s favorite month of the year. Why? Because her kids went back to school. Also, it meant summer was coming to an end, and Milly loathed hot weather. Her fair skin burned just contemplating the sun, and while she had a joy-sparked walk-in closet full of expensive, chic wide-brimmed hats, she somehow always managed to get sun poisoning somewhere. Also, her facialist would be furious with her if she even had a hint of sun exposure, and she did not want to piss off Svetlana or she’d get bumped from her much-coveted standing monthly appointment.
What she’d learned when she moved to LA from her native Connecticut twenty years earlier was that September didn’t mean the same thing in Los Angeles that it did on the East Coast. Just as women didn’t seem to age here, nature was also defied by seasons that refused to change. The leaves didn’t turn magical shades of autumnal colors. And somehow September was now hotter than August.
Maybe she should blame climate change? Her family had started composting (she posted about it on Instagram!), so she knew she was part of the solution and not the problem, but she also knew there was more she could be doing to save the planet, and she often made a men tal note to work harder on that but also . . . not be too hard on herself?
While Milly was “just a mom” in the summer months—hiding under hats and sequestering in the air-conditioning of her open-plan two-story fully renovated Spanish-style home in Hancock Park—in September, Milly became class mom and president of the PTA, and this fall, in what some might call an elementary school–leadership coup, Milly was also named head of the fundraising committee.
It was a trifecta of epic proportions.
Milly took these roles seriously. She knew some of the “working moms” thought of her as “just a mom” regardless of all her titles and hard work.
Did that bother her?
Not really.
Maybe a little.
Okay. More than a little.
It drove her fucking nuts, if she was honest about it.
It made her want to KILL them!
Okay, not really, like, commit murder, obviously. But . . . weren’t women supposed to be leaning in? If they learned nothing else from Sheryl Sandberg and her journey from her gorgeous book—which Milly had read almost three full chapters of and which still, years later, graced her bedside table as a reminder that one day she would finish reading it—shouldn’t it be that?
She knew that the work she did for the Palms School was—or hopefully would be, definitely should be—appreciated. And tonight was the night she waited for all year with both anticipation and a touch of anxiety:
Back to School Night.
A night when she would reintroduce herself to the Palms community as the new head of the annual fundraising campaign.
The Palms School, nestled in the heart of Hollywood, didn’t look like much. It was an “urban school,” and by urban, she did not mean Black. Though of course all colors and religions were welcome at the Palms (and not just welcome but essential to the multicultural fabric of the school!). No, she literally meant urban as in city.
Wait. Was she allowed to say that? Was she allowed to think that? She honestly wondered, but would never—could never—ask it aloud.
Who would she even ask, anyway? There were ears everywhere. It seemed like everyone was listening. Maybe not the way she was “listening,” which was listening to learn, but y’know—listening.
The Palms School was known—nay, renowned (in certain circles)— for its warm, progressive, constructivist education and community, and for raising and educating the next generation of kind-hearted, inquisitive, anti-racist global citizens. When facilitating tours for prospective parents, Milly always made sure to point out that private middle schools in Los Angeles loved Palms elementary kids and they were known for getting all their students into their first-choice private middle schools.
She always felt a sense of acceptance and purpose when she pulled up to the school and into her dedicated parking spot in the lot. She had won it in the school’s silent auction the year before. (She later learned she had been bidding against herself, but the $10K was well worth it, as it obviously all went to the school and assured her a parking spot, which—ask anyone—is priceless in LA, especially when the school parking lot was under construction for the last two years for the new Field of Dreams project she had helped spearhead.)
But now was not the time to think about her parking spot. Now she would have to speak in front of all the parents and teachers and school administrators, namely to get families to give more to the beleaguered Field of Dreams project, which had gone way over budget. But here was where it got tricky: she also needed families to donate to the annual Giving Campaign with the goal of 100 percent participation. These contributions were expected on top of the tuition they all paid. It was the Cirque du Soleil of fundraising, and Milly had dedicated her entire summer to perfecting her speech.
“Hello, Palms parents!” she began. “I’m Milly. And a lot of you know me because I wear many hats at this school.”
Wait for it.
“Even a beret, sometimes.”
Silence. Like, she could have actually heard a pin drop.
The parents in the room stared at Milly with polite smiles. Milly shifted in her Celine scallop-edged flats. She should have worn boots.
“Tranquila,” she said to herself, like her beloved El Salvadoran nanny, Guadalupe, would say to her kids.
“I’ve been a room parent for seven years. So yes, I’m the author of all those emails! I know you working moms will be relieved to hear that I moved you to BCC this school year. You’re welcome, ladies!”
Another awkward silence. It was meant as a joke, but it was based in truth. There had been a lot of complaints about those who often “replied all.” Personally, Milly was a fan of “reply all.” Why have it as an option if not to use it? And she loathed the term “spare your inbox.” It’s not like their inboxes were sentenced to murder by a couple of class emails . . . about their children.
“I’m the mother of a fourth grader and a second grader—or, as my husband would say, ‘the Mother of Dragons.’”
A few laughs. Some parents shifted in their seats. She was losing them and she had just started. She had told her husband she shouldn’t use that “Mother of Dragons” line. Game of Thrones was like a thousand years ago, and no one she knew watched the spin-off. Why did she ever ask for help on these speeches? She had to remember she was perfectly capable of doing it herself.
Silence. Then, a forced laugh and applause. Milly looked up to see it was coming from a mom who had just arrived, a mom whom no one expected to see again. An impeccably coiffed woman named Dawn, who was trailed by her “problematic” husband.
Parents looked over to see the couple and audibly gasped. The tension in the room was palpable.
For most parents in the community, this was the first time they were seeing Dawn since her family had left the country years ago when her husband had been very publicly fired from his own law firm and “MeToo’d.” Or canceled. Or both. Milly couldn’t keep track of the appropriate verbiage, but she knew she didn’t want her or her own husband to be either of those things or they would be personas non grata in Hollywood, and her husband’s many trendy bars and restaurants relied completely upon being in everyone’s favor.
When Milly had learned about Dawn’s family’s return in confidence earlier that week, she was surprised that the Palms would let their family back in, but she also knew, as fundraising chair, the school needed the money, and Dawn’s family could pay to be there. And then some.
Milly knew it wasn’t Dawn’s fault that they’d had to leave, and no one knew exactly why her husband had been fired (though it was common knowledge he had a temper), but she still felt they should have just stayed in Canada. And would it have killed her to arrive on time that night instead of staging this big surprise entrance that interrupted the speech she had been preparing for months?
Tranquila.
Milly realized she was still reading, still talking, words were coming out of her mouth, but her mind was elsewhere.
Tranquila.
Excerpted from Moms Like Us: A Novel by Jordan Roter. © 2025 Published by Little A, May 6, 2025. All Rights Reserved.
