Shades of Green by Liz Flaherty

 

Shades of Green 

by Liz Flaherty

Buy Link

Lake Stories

I tend to have lakes in books. I’m not sure where it came from, since I’m totally terrified of water, but it’s definitely a repeater in my settings. There was the Lake Miniagua series from Harlequin Heartwarming. The A New Season series is about a small town called Fallen Soldier, but at its far edge is Cooper Lake. I really thought I was probably done with lakes.

But then my husband and I drove to Town Lake, near Akron, Indiana. I’d never known it existed even though I’d lived in the area my entire life, but there it was. Back a narrow road, with a lot of trees and a small group of houses.

It didn’t take long for Town Lake to get a new name—Harper Loch—and grow some, to sprout houses and a walking path all the way around it, to have a mercantile, a salon, a church, two huge houses called the Burl and Lark Meadow, and a population that has grown from 87 to 100 over the course of three books.

Harper Loch has become so familiar to me in the writing of this series. Actually, at the risk of sounding really sappy, it’s dear to me. I hope you love it, too.

Introducing Shades of Green, Cari’s story. What will happen when the preacher and the pilot dance together at a wedding? Come along and find out!

Blurb:

Pastor Cari Newland’s life is stuck in the middle.
Her friends and parishioners at Harper Loch are mostly older than her thirty-two years… or they’re younger. While she likes being a single minister, she would also like to meet someone who sees her as someone besides “Preach.”

She gets hugged a lot, she realizes, but she never gets held. She’s never been the daughter her parents wanted or the woman her long-ago fiancé needed. Her life is good, but it’s lonely.
Enter handsome navy pilot Zack Grant. Visiting his parents at the lake, he attends a wedding Cari officiates. They talk and they dance and they are … interested. But Zack’s life is a thousand miles away and Cari’s life is firmly in Harper Loch. When interested begins to grow into something more, Cari and Zack must decide how to fit into each other’s world and whether or not they can make a long-distance romance work.

But Cari’s life is in the small lake community in Michigan. Zack’s is in the Florida Panhandle. And neither of them has any intention of changing locations.

Excerpt:

“It’s funny,” I said, as we talked over coffee, “that a day that should have had sadness in it, and did, because of John’s suffering, has been such a good day. Celebrations of life are just that, aren’t they?”

He laughed, the expression as clear in his dark blue eyes as the sound. “Do you overthink everything, by any chance?”

I frowned at him, although I wasn’t able to hold it very long. “It’s not by chance,” I said in my best preacher voice. “I work at it.”

Although I laughed, too, and enjoyed looking into his eyes, there was truth to the overthinking. Because of my vocation, it’s important that I never hurt anybody. I didn’t mention Ray’s baldness until he did. I didn’t tease Ellie about her OCD until she bemoaned it at a Wednesday gathering.

“I need to stop doing that with my parents,” I said slowly, using the tines of my fork to pick up crumbs of the piecrust that was flakier than my own. “I can’t change them. I can’t create what seems like quality of life if that’s not what they want.”

Zack nodded. “Good point. Remember that Luke and I weren’t all that charmed about Pop moving to Michigan? We had a hell of a time coming around to the fact that he’s an adult and completely able to take care of himself. Especially with Ellie doing the heavy lifting.”

“I get that. I wish I had more faith that Dad would do the right thing for Adria. I understand that he wants to let her keep her independence as long as he can, but what if he puts her or others in danger? I still get the willies when I think about her on that trip here with someone none of us knows.”

While I didn’t like that I was ending my good day on such a serious note, it was good to talk to someone who didn’t have a horse in the race. Zack had met my parents, but he didn’t have any kind of relationship with them.

“How is it having them stay with you?”

“It’s okay.” It wasn’t, because I’d been living alone since I was in culinary school, and I liked it. But I couldn’t come right out and say I didn’t want to share my house with my parents. Not only would I sound like an ungrateful brat, I didn’t really consider the parsonage my house. It was part of the church, albeit sometimes a messy part. There were meetings there sometimes. I counseled people there.

“It’s not like at Pop and Ellie’s, is it? They just tell me when they want me to get out of their hair, or Ellie sends me on an errand.”

“I kind of do that with them. I keep them busy when I can, or they’d just sit in front of the TV all day. Adria’s been crocheting, and she helps with the flowers in church. I think she likes to feel needed. I guess everyone does. Women, anyway.”

Zack grinned. “Men like feeling needed, too, but at our convenience.”

“Do you have any advice?” I fluttered my eyelashes at him. Since they’re short and stubby, I’m sure it wasn’t exactly a thrill, but his grin deepened anyway. “In case I need it.”

He reached for my hand where it lay on the table, picked it up, and kissed the palm, holding my gaze the whole time. “Be who you are,” he said quietly. “It doesn’t get any better than that.”

Bio:

Retired from the post office, Liz Flaherty spends non-writing time thinking about writing and wanting to travel. The author of 20-some books and her husband Duane share an old farmhouse in North Central Indiana. She thinks one of the things that keeps you young when you quite obviously aren’t anymore is the constant chances you have to reinvent yourself. Her latest professional incarnation is as a fledgling women’s fiction author and she is enjoying every minute that she’s not scared to death. You can connect with her at https://linktr.ee/LizFlaherty. She welcomes new friends!

Patches of Red by Liz Flaherty

 

Patches of Red

by Liz Flaherty

Buy Link

When I wrote Pieces of Blue, Maggie’s story, it was with no intention of returning to Harper Loch, Michigan for another book. I mean, really, how much is there to say about a 40-acre lake in the middle of farm country with a full-time population of 80-something? 

What was I thinking? That’s 80-some stories, right?  

Well, no, not really.  

But Maggie’s best friend Ellie, with her long red hair and a liberal dose of OCD—not to mention her years spent as a nurse practitioner and a bartender-bouncer combination—invited herself in. So I said, Okay, fine, a sequel, and then I’m done.  

Or maybe not. 

Book Blurb: 

He’s handsome but couldn’t even remember her name. She’s pretty, but her finickiness drives him crazy. And yet …  

After twenty years as a nurse practitioner in the same practice, Ellie Wentz gives notice. When office politics interferes with her job, it’s time to get a new one. When her son and daughter-in-law buy her house and she has sold and given away everything else that’s not attached to her heartstrings, she packs up what remains and goes to Harper Loch to spend time with her best friend. She’ll decide what to do and where to go from there. No matter how much the handsome friend of her friends annoys her. 

Jesse Grant comes to Harper Loch to help out his niece for a few weeks. He’s retired from the navy, his boys are grown, and he’s at loose ends. But he really likes the little lake community in Michigan—he thinks he might stay. Long widowed, he has no interest in getting married again, and neither does the redhead he can’t seem to avoid. And yet … again.  

Excerpt: 

“You have all new days in front of you,” he said now. “If a chance doesn’t work out, take another one the next day until something sticks.” 

“I theory, I agree,” she said after a moment. “In reality, I think I have some missing pieces. I need to find out what they are.” 

He nodded. “Understood.” He’d never found his, just stitched up all the torn places and gone on. But he remembered feeling just like she did now. The memory made a painful ache.  

They stood in her doorway, leaning against opposite sides of the frame. Her arms were crossed and she’d put on some kind of sweater thing over the long dress she wore. The sweater was a creamy color…not quite white…and it looked soft. How could a woman who was completely covered up and had her hair in a braid look so sexy? 

He realized he didn’t know how to leave any more than he and the boys knew how to say goodbye on the phone. He and Ellie weren’t dating, although they were spending time together. They weren’t “hooking up,” because it didn’t feel right. At least, not yet.  

But he still wanted to stroke the sleeve of her sweater to know if it was as soft as it looked, to feel the texture of her skin through the thin fabric. He wanted to touch the long braid to see if it still held the warmth of the day’s sunshine in it. He thought it probably did.  

He wanted to make her feel better.  

He was out of practice, he guessed. There weren’t a lot of single women in his age group in the area, and none that had captured his imagination beyond being friends. There were several he enjoyed talking to, a few he’d shared casual meals or trips to movies in Willoughby with, but somehow things hadn’t clicked. 

He hadn’t wanted to touch the sleeves of their sweaters. The thought made him chuckle, and then he shrugged, because he didn’t know how to explain it to Ellie’s questioning gaze. 

She smiled at him. “Thanks for the tour. I really did enjoy it.” 

“Me, too.” 

When her arms came around his neck, her sleeves touched his skin. They really were soft. So were the hands that linked at his nape and tunneled into his hair. When she raised her face to his, he met her halfway, meeting her soft lips in a long and sweet greeting and farewell-for-now.  

Things definitely clicked.  

He didn’t try to stop her when she drew away, but he didn’t take his hands from where he’d set them on her hips as they kissed. “Well,” he said.  

“Indeed,” she said.  

“Thank you.” 

“You, too.” She smiled at him, although uncertainty flickered in the expression. 

He bent his head, kissing her again. Gently. More quickly. Just as a promise. Sort of. Because it was too soon for promises, and he thought maybe neither of them was the promising type. 

Had this been the reason for his anxiety earlier? It didn’t make sense. Or did it? He didn’t do relationships. He wasn’t good at them. And yet whatever was growing between him and the woman with the soft sweater was … something. It lent an air of … well, something … to his days and sometimes his nights. Unease, like he’d thought?  

Or anticipation. Maybe. 

Author Bio: 

Retired from the post office, Liz Flaherty spends non-writing time sewing, quilting, and doing whatever else she wants to. She and Duane live in the old farmhouse in North Central Indiana they moved to in 1977. They’ve talked about moving, but really…40-some years’ worth of stuff? It’s not happening!  

She’d love to hear from you at lizkflaherty@gmail.com or please come and see her at: 

Website: http://lizflaherty.net 

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/lizkflaherty  

Pieces of Blue by Liz Flaherty

Pieces of Blue

Liz Flaherty

Buy Links:

Amazon:  https://a.co/d/0dt0yjU9 

D2D: https://books2read.com/u/491qMp 

Things happen when you don’t intend for them to. Have you noticed that? 

A couple of years ago, Pieces of Blue was released by a new publishing company. Its reviews were good, its sales good—at least by my standards—and I was a happy camper writer.  

I’m still grateful to that company for seeing what I did, for encouraging and promoting and being timely and author-friendly. But at the end of the day, it didn’t work out, and Pieces of Blue was in the green room again, waiting to come back out. I wrote the second and third books in the series, and then, as publishing goes, Blue and I waited some more.  

But the truth is, my writing career has a sell-by date on it, and I was fearful it was going to pass. So, with the encouragement of the new publishing company, the rights were reverted and Pieces of Blue is out again. New cover by the wonderful Nancy Fraser and new beginnings for Colors, the Harper Loch Trilogy. 

Blurb 

Life comes in shades of blue... 

Self-imposed loner, Maggie North, has worked for bestselling author Trilby Winterroad her entire adult life, starting as simply his assistant and ending up as his ghost writer. Through ups and downs--including a divorce from an abusive husband--he has been the one person on whom she could always rely. So when Trilby dies suddenly, Maggie finds herself adrift, not sure what she’ll do or where she belongs in the world any longer. And the confusion continues when she discovers he’s not only left her his beloved dachshund, Chloe, but a house she knew nothing about, on a lake she’s never heard of. 

It only takes one visit for Maggie to fall in love with both the house and the small lakeside community. The longer she’s there, the safer she feels and the more her life begins to expand...as do her feelings toward her friend and Trilby’s attorney, Sam Eldridge. 

But is she really safe? Or are the glistening pieces of her new life about to shatter as an old danger returns? 

Excerpt 

Sam, Chloe, and I went for a walk around the lake later that day. Ben had collected the cans from where Sam put them in the recycle bin and told me three times I wasn’t a bother. Ellie was having a late lunch with Sadie in Placer. As big as the Burl was, I felt confined there. 

I knew Sam was disturbed because the empty cans at the fish shack hadn’t clicked with him as being of possible importance. “I’d be a failure as Finlay, wouldn’t I?” 

I couldn’t see him failing at anything, although I doubted he’d been all that good at marriage. Some people just weren’t. I thought his wife was one who had likely needed patience from her partner—maybe more of it than Sam had to give.  

“You don’t need to be Finlay.” I looked up at him, shaking my head. “You just need to be Sam. You’re the best Sam there is.” 

Was I, right in the middle of my personal maelstrom of panic and dread and regret, flirting with Sam Eldridge? He was my friend. My lawyer. My ukulele partner—although we were admittedly better together when we confined our musical performances to instruments we could actually play. The fact that I thought he was the handsomest man I’d ever met was just a late-in-friendship observation, as was the warm ripple of my long-inactive girl parts that accompanied his presence. I’m fifty-two years old, for heaven’s sake. I don’t have a flat stomach or perky boobs. My libido was … 

Well, alive and well is what it was. Even with every nerve I had jangling with worry over what would happen next. Would the next kitten be dead? Would I? I thought there might be something wrong with sexual thoughts cavorting around in my head and other areas, too, but I couldn’t for the life of me think of what it could be. 

We’d been playing around since I’d come to the lake, building on the feelings we were discovering—at least, I thought he was discovering them, too. But I wasn’t in a place to act on them; if Greg Mathis’s release from prison took me down a rabbit hole of horror, I couldn’t take anyone else with me.  

Maybe we could … No maybe to it, I told myself forcefully. While I’d never been a fan of purely physical relationships, they did have their place. Right now, that was all Sam and I could have.  

He held my gaze long enough for me to realize I was lying to myself. He took my hand. “I don’t know where we are,” he said, his voice so low I had to strain to hear, “or where we’re going, but even if all we have going is friendship, Maggie North, we’re in this together. Okay?” 

“Be still, my soul, be still …” The line was from an A. E. Housman poem I’d read when Tim was alive and I thought life was full of promise. I’d memorized its first stanza and held onto the words through those days of so much love and so much loss I knew I’d never see its like again. 

I hadn’t, either. But Sam’s eyes, the shade of which I’d determined from a color wheel were cerulean, made me think I should add a yet to that thought. Because together sounded more wonderful than I could have ever imagined.  

Especially now. 

Bio and links

Liz Flaherty has spent the past several years enjoying not working a day job, making terrible crafts, and writing stories in which the people aren’t young, brilliant, or even beautiful. She’s decided (and has to re-decide most every day) that the definition of success is having a good time. Along with her husband of lo, these many years, kids, grands, friends, and the occasional cat, she’s doing just that. Find her on Facebook or her blog, Window Over the Sink. A girl just can’t have too many friends!

https://linktr.ee/lizflaherty 

 

A New Kind of Hope: A Dickens Holiday Romance by Liz Flaherty

A New Kind of Hope

A Dickens Holiday Romance

by Liz Flaherty

Buy Links:Amazon: https://a.co/d/2DiAbVy

 Everywhere else: https://books2read.com/u/bogDg0

I remember … well, I’m old, I remember almost everything, but only in bits and pieces and only in ways that give me joy. I’ve written enough books and stories that I don’t remember some of very well (or at all), but more about that in a minute.

What I was going to say I remembered was when Harlequin and Silhouette started releasing holiday books. I’m sure the other publishers did, too, but H/S was what I normally read because those books cost less and I loved them. Then I started reading all the holiday collections—the Regencies were my favorite, because Carla Kelly and Mary Balogh always had stories in them. I still remember some of those stories; I still reread ones I have copies of.

I’ve written several holiday stories myself, but there was one I’d forgotten about. See? Told you I did that. The first year the Dickens Holiday Romances were released, I wrote a story for it. Wisdom of the Heart was Fee and Jed’s story, but I couldn’t quite recall what it was about.  

So I read it. And I liked it. I’d thought of writing a new one this year, but I didn’t get it done. Maybe I could … 

I did. I changed its title, because I didn’t think it fit very well, and Nancy Fraser made me a new cover I just loved, and I changed a little here and there, and now … this very day … A New Kind of Hope is released as an ebook on its own.  

About A New Kind of Hope 

They were best friends who fell in love, but that was high school. Life and families and other loves had happened since that dear and distant time. They’re friends again, comfortable with each other and having so much fun at Christmas time in Dickens. They’re not still in love, but…wait…could it be happening again? 

Excerpt: 

Jed got up, going over to where she stood and taking her into his arms. For a moment, he just held her, giving all of her curves time to adjust to his planes and angles. Then he kissed her, taking his time about it, thinking … no, not thinking at all. Just feeling. It had been so long since he’d held a woman he lo … he cared about. Too long, Heather would say, but she’d know, too, what he’d been waiting for.  

“You were my best and last love,” she’d told him once during her illness, holding his hand in her thin one and laying her fingers up against his. “I’m not going to be yours. I’m good with that.” 

It should have felt wrong to let go of one love while holding another, but it didn’t. For the first time since Heather’s death, Jed gave credence to the thought that he might someday be happy again. Not yet, but someday. 

“The tree-lighting at the Common is Saturday night,” he said. “Want to go with me?” 

She nodded. “Most of the stores are opening back up afterward. A couple of the Klatchers are going to open Silver Threads after the lighting and man the cutting table. Ailey and I had planned to go.” She smiled, but there was an extra shine in her eyes. “Maybe you should kiss me again.” 

“Maybe I should.”  

Author Bio :

Liz Flaherty wanted to shake off the dust of central Indiana farm country and move to the city, get rich, wear designer clothes, and write books. 

Well, she writes books.  

She lives five miles from where she grew up, only now she relishes the sights and sounds and scents of the fields around her, doesn’t care much about clothes, and thinks being rich would probably have been overrated anyway.  She’s spent the past several years enjoying not working a day job, making terrible crafts, and writing stories in which the people aren’t young, brilliant, or even beautiful. She’s decided (and has to re-decide nearly every day) that the definition of success is having a good time. Along with her husband of lo, these many years, kids, grands, friends, and the occasional cat, she’s doing just that. 

You can find her all over the place, but this is easiest:  https://linktr.ee/LizFlaherty She’d love to hear from you! 

 

SHARING TIME

 By Caroline Clemmons

So many of my friends are wonderful authors. The three below are writers I met through a group of women who once wrote for Precious Gems, a line at Kensington. The line is no more, but I’m happy to say these ladies are still writing great books!

 

LIZ FLAHERTY

BACK TO McGUFFEY’S

**Special Price!

The one that got away

Could Kate Rafael’s day get any worse? First she lost her job, then her house burned down and now her ex is back in town. Apparently, Ben McGuffey’s taking a break from being a big-city doctor to help at his family’s tavern and reassess the choices he’s made for his career.

Ben ends up giving Kate a hand, then giving her kisses and finally, a second chance. But when a local teenager shows them both a glimpse of what it means to be a family, Ben wonders if having kids in small-town Vermont would clash with his ambitions. Or can he truly come home again to Kate?

https://www.amazon.com/Back-McGuffeys-Liz-Flaherty-ebook/dp/B00JZFL4LA/

LUCINDA RACE

WEDDINGS & WANDS

A Paranormal Book Store Cozy Mystery, Book 12

Enjoy this witty, small town paranormal cozy mystery by award-winning and bestselling author Lucinda Race.

Welcome to Pembroke Cove, where witches and murderers are multiplying.

In less than a week, wedding bells will ring for Greg Erikson—a.k.a. Detective Cutie—and bookstore owner and witch Lily Michaels. Lily’s to do list is already miles long. Adding “solve a murder” wasn’t part of the plan. But they have little choice when Lily discovers a dead Elemental witch across the street, revealing a grudge that threatens to upend not just their big day, but the entire Pembroke Cove coven.

Weddings & Wands is the twelfth novel in the A Book Store Cozy Mystery Series. Although each book can be read as a standalone, it is best to read them in order. This is a humorous, small town, cozy mystery that guarantees the culprit is caught. Happy reading!

https://www.amazon.com/Weddings-Wands-Paranormal-Witch-Mystery-ebook/dp/B0DSLZDTJ5/

 

NANCY FRASER

CAMELLIA

Garden Belles Mail Order Brides, Book 6

From the time she was four years old, Camellia Sutton has been told she’s “Too smart for her own good”. It all began when she started reading storybooks to her older brother. When her mother took the books away, Camellia began telling him the stories verbatim from memory.

Now at twenty-four, with a degree in medical research, she’s looking to escape her previous life in Saint Louis and get away from those who want to stifle her intellect. When a new friend suggests she locale to Oregon as a mail-order bride, Camellia is hesitant.

Widower Owen Marshall teaches mathematics at the Univesity of Oregon. He can handle his lesson plans and his students just fine. What he can’t handle is his nine-year-old daughter. When his longtime friend and housekeeper suggests he needs a wife, he disagrees. Not to be discouraged, the woman takes matters into her own hands, initiating contact with the Garden Belles matchmaking service.

If Camellia agrees to relocate and become Owen’s bride, will he honor his promise to allow her a career? Can two people with exceptional intellects create a loving family so they can all live happily ever after?

https://www.amazon.com/Camellia-Garden-Belles-Mail-Order-Brides-ebook/dp/B0DYBVJ7RX/

These ladies write fun, romantic books that appeal to all readers of romance.

Thanks for stopping by.

The Girls of Tonsil Lake by Liz Flaherty

The Girls of Tonsil Lake

by Liz Flaherty

Amazon: https://a.co/d/1AF21xt 

 Books2Read: https://books2read.com/u/bxGQQk

The Girls of Tonsil Lake  

I don’t know where the title came from, but one day I typed The Girls of Tonsil Lake in the header part of a manuscript page and away I went. I clarified in the book that whoever named the lake thought it looked like a tonsil. In retrospect, that explanation doesn’t really make a lot of sense, but it was the best I had, because no matter what I tried in naming the small lake where Vin, Jean, Andie, and Suzanne grew up, Tonsil Lake it remained. 

It was my first ever women’s fiction title. It was first released in 2013 and over ten years later, I wanted to see it again. I wanted to go to Hope Island with the Girls the summer they were all 51, laugh and mourn with them, and shake my head at some of the parts of their stories they made me tell.  

Two years ago, my sons took me to Maine, where I’d never been, and I felt there what I’d felt all those years ago when I read Elisabeth Ogilvie novels and again when I wrote The Girls of Tonsil Lake. 

I hope you’ll give it a look, and I hope you like it. 

Blurb: 

Four women whose differences only deepen the friendship forged in a needy childhood...  

They were four little girls living in ramshackle trailers beside a lake in rural Indiana. They shared everything from dreams to measles to boyfriends to more dreams. As they grew up, everything in their lives changed--except their friendship. Through weddings and divorces, births and deaths, one terrible secret has kept them close despite all the anger, betrayal, and pain. Now, forty years later, facing illness, divorce, career challenges, and even addiction, the women come together once again for a bittersweet month on an island in Maine. Staring down their fifties, they must consider the choices life is offering them now and face the pain of what happened long ago. Secrets are revealed and truths uncovered, but will their time together cement their lifelong friendship--or drive them apart forever? 

Excerpt: 

Jean 

“It’s where I’d slept,” I said. “It was hard to get used to being in a bed again.” I met Andie’s eyes when she came back to the table. Are you okay? I was doing it again, asking the question we always asked, expecting the slight nod, the even slighter smile that meant I’m fine. Don’t worry. 

She nodded, smiled, picked up her coffee cup. 

“I wake up mad,” said Suzanne. “Tommy slept through the night from the time he was a few weeks old. Why is he all of a sudden waking me?” She looked haunted, and I reached to squeeze her hand. 

“I keep thinking, though,” said Andie, “how we didn’t do that after they hauled Chuck out of the lake. We should have had nightmares, but none of us did. We slept better than we had for months.” 

I felt my eyes widen. We never, ever talked about this. Even when Rosie died and we stood gaunt-eyed and grieving beside her open grave, we hadn’t talked about Chuck Hardesty. 

“Our nightmares came from his living, not his death,” said Vin tersely and accurately. “Although I have to admit that sometimes I wonder…” 

She stopped, looking down at the cup in front of her, picking up the paper napkin that lay beside it and shredding it. There was silence between us, then Suzanne’s hand came to the middle of the table. I placed mine on top. Andie’s and Vin’s hands came to the stack of intertwined fingers at nearly the same time. 

“That’s funny,” said Andie, “when we used to do that, no one had wrinkly knuckles or brown spots on their hands. What the hell happened?” She rolled her eyes at Suzanne. “You, of course, still don’t have brown spots or wrinkly knuckles.” 

Vin never finished her sentence. She didn’t have to, because we all wondered the same thing. Had these past two years of our lives—deaths, illnesses, and emotional traumas—been punishment for something that happened nearly forty years ago? 

It was time to go to the lake. 

Buy Links: 

Amazon: https://a.co/d/1AF21xt 

 Books2Read: https://books2read.com/u/bxGQQk 

Author bio

 Liz Flaherty has spent the past several years enjoying not working a day job, making terrible crafts, and writing stories in which the people aren’t young, brilliant, or even beautiful. She’s decided (and has to re-decide most every day) that the definition of success is having a good time. Along with her husband of lo, these many years, kids, grands, friends, and the occasional cat, she’s doing just that.  

 

Pieces of Blue by Liz Flaherty

Pieces of Blue

by Liz Flaherty

Books2Read: https://books2read.com/FlahertyBlue  

Amazon: https://a.co/d/eyEjPDA

 My intent, once I got rolling on Pieces of Blue, was to write Maggie’s story. Just that. She’s a natural-born loner, so maybe just this once, I could keep the character count in a book at a manageable level. Lots of others writers do it; surely I could, too. 

But everyone—at least everyone who makes herself at home in my keyboard—needs a best friend, so we met Ellie Wentz, a nurse practitioner whose been Maggie’s “ride or die” since they were in second grade. Then, when Maggie was walking around the lake, she stopped to look at the pristine little church and, before she kept walking, she met its pastor. Young Cari Newland went to culinary school and ended up in the pulpit—go figure.  

Then there’s Sam, who’s Maggie’s lawyer friend. Who suddenly gives her frissons. She’s a writer; she really likes the word frisson. When he appeared to me, he looked like Mark Harmon in his 50s, but to Maggie, he just looks like Sam. And he gives her frissons.  

I hope you love Maggie’s story as much as I do, and…hey…if you get a frisson or two along the way, all the better.  

Book Blurb: 

Life comes in shades of blue... 

      Self-imposed loner, Maggie North, has worked for bestselling author Trilby Winterroad her entire adult life, starting as simply his assistant and ending up as his ghost writer. Through ups and downs--including a divorce from an abusive husband--he has been the one person on whom she could always rely. So when Trilby dies suddenly, Maggie finds herself adrift, not sure what she’ll do or where she belongs in the world any longer. And the confusion continues when she discovers he’s not only left her his beloved dachshund, Chloe, but a house she knew nothing about, on a lake she’s never heard of. 

It only takes one visit for Maggie to fall in love with both the house and the small lakeside community. The longer she’s there, the safer she feels and the more her life begins to expand...as do her feelings toward her friend and Trilby’s attorney, Sam Eldridge. 

       But is she really safe? Or are the glistening pieces of her new life about to shatter as an old danger returns? 

Buy Links: 

Books2Read: https://books2read.com/FlahertyBlue  

Amazon: https://a.co/d/eyEjPDA 

Excerpt: 

There were ten of us that night, all women. A few drove together from Placer to join us. Several of them had been at coffee that morning. We entertained each other by explaining why we were or were not wearing the same clothes we’d worn then. 

The night was warm, the air soft. I looked at them as we walked and talked. I listened to their stories—Trilby taught me a lot about listening and its importance.  

We’ve all known struggles and heartbreak; several of us have known physical abuse. Sadie had lived in her car for a while. Rose had left Colby in Detroit and come to the lake, saying he could come or go; it was up to him. Adrian told the story of her Uncle Henry’s father beating his wife half to death because their son “wasn’t right.”  

Maxine said her husband had raised his hand to her exactly one time and she told him he’d better not let it fall or he’d never, ever be able to go to sleep again. We laughed at that, but she didn’t. “I was scared to death and so was he. Not that I’d kill him, but that he’d gotten so angry over something minor. He got himself to an anger management therapist and I went along with him. But I’m aware every day that we’re the lucky ones. Our lives could have gone a whole different way from that day forward than what it did.” 

We’ve laughed together at the images people have of others’ lives. While Harper Loch doesn’t look anything like a resort or even a high point on rural Michigan’s social scale, it does look like a place where bad things can’t happen. Where marriages are all good, no one uses illegal substances, and everyone is safe.  

But we know better—and it’s not lost on me how often I use the word we when I talk about the lake. We’ve absorbed each other’s pain. I didn’t know how Cari could bear the weight of the secrets she kept.  

 “How many women around here have been abused? Not just on the lake, but in the area.” 

“More than we know,” Rose acknowledged. “Just like anywhere. Some talk about it, but more than a few don’t.” 

“Many,” Haley agreed. “Because they think it’s their fault or it’s never going to happen again or they don’t have any alternatives.” 

I thought of those women. Of their children. I thought of the people who’d circled the proverbial wagons around me to keep me safe. I thought of Cari and Ellie and the confidences they kept and carried with them. I thought of Aunt Lin and Claire and Annabelle and how strong they’d been when their lives turned on them. 

I thought of the ashes. And of the sapphires. 

Author Bio: 

Liz Flaherty has spent the past several years enjoying not working a day job, making terrible crafts, and writing stories in which the people aren’t young, brilliant, or even beautiful. She’s decided (and has to re-decide most every day) that the definition of success is having a good time. Along with her husband of lo, these many years, kids, grands, friends, and the occasional cat, she’s doing just that. You can reach her at lizkflaherty@gmail.com or find her anywhere on  https://linktr.ee/LizFlaherty. She’d love to hear from you. 

Reinventing Riley: A New Season Story by Liz Flaherty

Reinventing Riley:  A New Season Story

by Liz Flaherty

 Buy Link

Amazon Buy Link

Book Blurb:

A New Season, Book 2 – Reinventing Riley 

A month ago, I told you about how A New Season began—with the crossing of a bridge into somewhere or something different, something new—something that is a change. Only this time it was a real bridge. I don’t remember where we were, but the green sign identifying the span identified it as Fallen Soldier Bridge. 

I told you about Syd Cavanaugh then. Today I’m introducing her best friend, Riley Winters. 

Living in Central Indiana among a gathering of small towns, one of the fun things for me about visiting cities is their tall buildings. I find them amazing and exciting. I like craning my neck in search of the sky, eating at restaurants not available in cornfield communities, and walking everywhere. 

And then I can’t wait to get home, where the tallest building in all those small towns is three stories, the sky is big and beautiful, and “everybody knows your name.”   

But it’s the buildings I’m thinking about today, the ones that hold place of pride on corners or stand in groups in the middle of the block, their facades corniced and bracketed. They’re brick and most of them have had windows and doors and purposes replaced over the years. Many of them have been painted in colors more welcoming than the old brick. 

Reinventing Riley is a sweet romance between a rock-and-roll playing pastor and a savvy businesswoman. Their story shouldn’t have anything to do with buildings, and yet it does. When Rye, who’s just sold a business and has absolutely no interest in buying another one, sees the Culp Building in downtown Fallen Soldier, Pennsylvania, it speaks to her. Like all old buildings, it has stories to tell. 

Reluctantly, she listens.   

Excerpt: 

On the plane, Jake talked about the interview. “I think it went well. The church is large and much more progressive than Fallen Soldier. I could actually have a private life there. The youth pastorate is the one that’s open, so I’d work with kids, and I’d love that.” 

The but was silent, but she felt it anyway. “When are you going to North Carolina?” she asked. 

“Not until after the holidays. I’m going down to preach a Sunday in January for Wyatt, and I’ll talk to them while I’m there.  Even if I end up leaving Fallen Soldier, I owe the Little Church in the Woods fulltime until that happens. I wouldn’t leave between Thanksgiving and Christmas in any event.” 

She wished she could tell what he was really thinking, but she couldn’t. There was no vibe between them indicating which way his decision was leaning. Not that those vibes were all that dependable anyway. She used to think she knew what was in Ben’s mind and heart, and she seldom did. They had joked that with bipolar disorder, she was bound to be right at least half the time, but it hadn’t worked out that way.  

They talked about other things then, a movie they wanted to see, the Christmas pageant at church, the food pantry that burst with donations this time of year but was nearly bare by February.  

When they were on the mountain road that led from Altoona to Cooper Lake, Jake said quietly, “It’s a blessing to have choices.” He slowed as light snow began to drift down. “I’ve known people whose pastoral careers were irreversibly changed and occasionally ruined by a single incident that was often not within their control. Or by a decision that didn’t fit into the parameters set forth by a church’s administration even if it was done in faith.” 

They didn’t get back to the lake until after nine o’clock. Although it had been an eventful day and much had been accomplished, Rye was exhausted when she crawled into bed with Hagar against her back.  

Being alone felt good—it was something she’d finessed over the years since Ben’s passing. But it could also be lonely. If Jake went to Chicago, would she change her mind once again about moving there?  

The very thought made her sit up in bed, startling Hagar, who meowed in annoyance and dived under the covers.  

She’d been widowed for six years. She’d been a successful businesswoman for much longer than that. She avoided long-term relationships like the plague she often thought they were. She’d— 

Well, she’d never lied to herself, for starters, and she wasn’t going to start now. She didn’t know exactly what this “thing” with Jake McAlister was, but it was different than anything she’d experienced before. He was different.  

And perhaps she was, too.   

Bio and links: 

Liz Flaherty has spent the past several years enjoying not working a day job, making terrible crafts, and writing stories in which the people aren’t young, brilliant, or even beautiful. She’s decided (and has to re-decide most every day) that the definition of success is having a good time. Along with her husband of lo, these many years, kids, grands, friends, and the occasional cat, she’s doing just that. Find her on Facebook or her blog, Window Over the Sink. A girl just can’t have too many friends!  She can be reached at lizkflaherty@gmail.com or please find her at any of the places listed in Linktree at https://linktr.ee/LizFlaherty?subscribe 

 

A Year of Firsts: A New Season Story by Liz Flaherty

A Year of Firsts

A New Season Story

by Liz Flaherty

Book Blurb:

A New Season began, as most stories or series do, with the crossing of a bridge into somewhere or something different, something new—something that is a change. Only this time it was a real bridge. I don’t remember where we were, but the green sign identifying the span identified it as Fallen Soldier Bridge. 

While it is true I’ve been known to forget my own name, my kids’ names, and what I came into the kitchen for, the name of that bridge stuck. For months. 

Until I met Syd Cavanaugh and she decided to tell me her story.  

After selling the house she and her late husband had spent most of their marriage renovating, Syd did what he requested in their “marriage book.” Give yourself a year to mourn if you think you need to, then put it away. Make the next year a time of firsts. Do things you’ve always wanted to but haven’t because life—or I—got in the way. 

She started with a red car—Paul had always hated red cars—and ended up in Fallen Soldier, Pennsylvania, where she met Clay McAlister at the Have A Cup coffee and tea shop. Second chances. Loving again. Starting over. 

Could she? 

A Year of Firsts, Book One in A New Season, is Syd and Clay’s story. I hope you like it.  

Buy links:  

Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/43bz9ssu 

D2D: https://books2read.com/u/b5w1NR 

Excerpt: 

If I fall in love again, this will be how it happens.  

The thought came from nowhere she could identify, although she knew deep in her soul that it had to do with the tall man in shorts and a polo shirt walking up the incline of her yard to meet her. The man whose heart would likely not last as long as her own, whose every wince made her fear he was having a heart attack. His attitude toward exercise and diet was that of the middle-aged man in perfect health he appeared to be, not one who had a zipper-like scar up the center of his chest.  

But just the sight of him, with his light brown hair that needed cutting blowing into his eyes even though his graying beard was as always short and neat, made her heart beat harder and faster. She smiled, remembering his explanation of why he had a beard.  

At first he’d said it was because he had a weak chin he didn’t want anyone to notice, but then he’d admitted it had been an ongoing struggle between him and a producer of his show. “He was pushy and I was usually compliant. It was a great gig and I knew it. But it got to where he wanted to…create the brand he wanted me to be, I guess. I mostly went along because he was a pretty smart guy who knew his stuff, but when I came back from vacation with a beard and he gave the order to have it gone before I went on the air, it became the proverbial last straw.” 

Everyone had last straws sometimes, she thought abstractedly, stopping and waiting for him to join her. “Rehearsal was okay, wasn’t it?” she said, thinking her voice sounded horrifyingly breathy. It went along with the movie scenario. “I didn’t make a complete idiot of myself, did I? Or mess things up for other people? I never want to do that. Where’s Toby?” 

Of course, she didn’t. People who were pocket protectors protected not only themselves, but others from themselves.  

During all the long months of his illness, Paul had never seen her angry. She’d confined that to times alone. She’d hidden her anger to protect him, yet it had probably created a chasm between them. She should have let him see her last straws sometimes.  

“He’s asleep. Braxton is staying the night.” Clay didn’t hesitate as he joined her, just put his arms around her and led her into a dance. “You were great.” 

Syd wasn’t a good dancer, by any means. When friends used to tell her to “listen for the beat,” she always said, “what beat?” because she could never hear it. But she’d loved to dance anyway. It was emotion in motion, and sometimes…sometimes after Paul got sick it had been better than running screaming into the woods behind the house, which had been both an alternative and a temptation. Abba and Billy Joel and Journey had often brought some semblance of peace to the crashing cacophony of her anger. 

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d danced in a man’s arms—probably at the girls’ weddings, when Paul was already having trouble moving but had been determined to dance not only with Haley and Shiloh but with Syd as well. It had been excruciating, the fear that he would fall and be injured or become so exhausted he couldn’t stay to enjoy the receptions.  

The memory was fleeting, and of happy times, and then it was just Clay McAlister. Taller and more muscled than Paul had been, his arms creating a circle of light for just the two of them as they danced across the grass.  

When he kissed her in the shade of the willow tree, she wasn’t sure where the stars came from, only that they filled her eyes and, for a long and tender moment, her heart. She’d been so tired when she came outside, but weariness gave way to the magic of the clear night and being in Clay McAlister’s arms. She’d set her glass down somewhere, or he had, leaving her arms free to go around him.  

It couldn’t go anywhere, whatever “it,” this meeting of hearts and minds, was. She couldn’t go through it again, the caring for and ultimate losing of a man she loved. She didn’t think Clay wanted to settle into a committed relationship, either, and she didn’t know how to have any other kind.  

“Boat ride?” he said quietly, meeting her gaze in the dim lights from the deck. 

She nodded. That much, she could do. Saying no never even occurred to her. 

Bio and links: 

Retired from the post office, Liz Flaherty spends non-writing time sewing, quilting, and wanting to travel. The author of 20-some books and her husband Duane share an old farmhouse in North Central Indiana. 

Liz thinks one of the things that keeps you young when you quite obviously aren’t anymore is the constant chances you have to reinvent yourself. Her latest professional incarnation is as a fledgling women’s fiction author and she is enjoying every minute that she’s not scared to death.   

She can be reached at lizkflaherty@gmail.com or please find her at any of the places listed in Linktree at https://linktr.ee/LizFlaherty?subscribe 

 

The Summer of Sorrow and Dance Second Chances: Book 3 by Liz Flaherty

The Summer of Sorrow and Dance

Second Chances:  Book 3

by Liz Flaherty

https://amzn.to/3sPqnMN 

There is little in the writing life that is more satisfying than typing The End. Especially when it’s the last page of the last book in a series. Don’t misunderstand—I love series. Especially other people’s. I still have warm, fuzzy feelings about Nora Roberts’ Born In… and MacKade Brothers series, Nan Reinhardt’s River’s Edge shelf-ful of books, and more of Robyn Carr’s Virgin River and Sullivan’s Crossing than I can come close to remembering.  

When it comes to my own, however, the relief I feel at the end of a series is unparalleled. I feel like running around shouting, “I’m free! Free, I tell you!” and starting Chapter One of my next unfettered-by-possible-sequels project. It’s like when my youngest child left for college and I no longer had to arrange my life around his schedule.  

Oh, wait.  

Although I learned to enjoy the unfettered life of the empty nest, it was just the loneliest time. I had to get good at a reinvention game I didn’t really want to play, and I…oh, I just missed him. Him and his brother and sister, the attendant noise and busyness, their friends, and their dreams and… 

The book I’m talking about today, The Summer of Sorrow and Dance, is the last one in the Second Chances series. Its title, although I didn’t plan it, is reminiscent of those early empty nest days. I’m missing Dinah and Zach, but I love their story. I hope you do, too.  

Blurb 

In the midst of a summer of change, they’re both searching for an anchor. 

Dinah is a mom, a giver, and a doer, so she’s used to change, but this summer is kind of overdoing that. The diner where she’s worked for half her life is closing, her college-age kids aren’t coming home for the summer, and a property on nearby Cooper Lake is calling her name, bringing long-held dreams of owning a B & B to the fore. Newcomer Zach Applegate is entering into her dreams, too. 

Divorced dad, contractor, and recovering alcoholic Zach is in Fallen Soldier, Pennsylvania, to visit his brother and to decide what’s coming next in his life. He doesn’t like change much, yet it seems to be everywhere. But he finds an affinity for remodeling and restoration, is overjoyed when his teenage sons join him for the summer, and he likes Dinah Tyler, too. A lot. 

Dinah and Zach each experience sorrow and tumult, but go on to dance in the kitchen. Together, they have something, but is it enough? 

Excerpt 

Seth was walking around the room, bouncing a little on a board that squeaked. “Are you going to live here?”  

“Yes.” She could hardly believe it, but she was. She looked at Bendix, following his new boy around. “I think Bendix approves of it. My kids did. Grace is too young to have a vote.” 

“Grace?” Seth looked up curiously. 

She explained about the kitten. “I’m pretty sure Bendix thinks she’s his, too.” 

“I like that window on the landing,” said Seth. “Mom and Dad had a fight about one of those once. He took one out of an old church that was being torn down and wanted to put it in a new build. Mom was mad.” He grinned. “But Dad won that round, and the people paid a whole bunch more for the house so they could have it.” 

Zach slipped a hand over his son’s mouth. “I’m sure you wanted to know just those very details, didn’t you, Dinah? If you like, I can give you lots of anecdotes about his potty-training days.” 

She burst into laughter. “I can share some of those myself, but it wouldn’t be any fun without my kids here.” She looked at the time. “I’m going to watch Naomi and Rachel’s sons play baseball. I need to go. Thanks for going around the house with me, and for the notes. Maybe you’d like to come for supper tomorrow.” 

They left the house together, Seth giving Bendix a thorough petting before going ahead of his father to where Mike’s boat was tied at the Folly’s dock. Dinah watched him. “He’s a nice boy.”  

“He is.” Zach looked troubled. “Did your kids ever live with their dad?” 

She shook her head. “They spent a lot of time with him, more as they got older—they spent a few summers in Colorado. He would have liked having them just one at a time sometimes, but they didn’t roll that way. It was a shock to all of us when Arlie went to a different college than her brothers, and this is the first summer they’ve ever been apart.” 

“Would you have allowed it if they’d wanted to live with him?” 

She hesitated. “It would have depended on circumstances, I think. I wouldn’t have liked it. I certainly didn’t want them to.” She shrugged. “Hindsight’s twenty-twenty. Chances are I’d have had a screaming fit and dared Brian to take me to court, but I’d like to think I’d have been reasonable. I was this summer, after all.” 

“How old did you say they are?” 

“Twenty.” 

“Maybe different when they were sixteen, though?” 

She sighed. “Almost certainly.” 

He nodded. “Thanks.” He put an arm around her waist, giving her a light squeeze. “See you tomorrow night. Text me what to bring.” 

Later, she would wonder if she did it accidently-on-purpose, the way the kids did when they pranked each other, but somehow when he bent his head to kiss her cheek, she turned her face just enough for his lips to meet hers. She lifted her hand to his shoulder and he tucked her body in closer to his and the kiss caught and deepened.  

She knew this wasn’t what he wanted. If it was, he’d have made some move before beyond one-armed hugs and goodbye pecks on the cheek or the forehead. They hadn’t even talked about dating; they just saw each other. Often. 

But now, in a sweet moment while Seth waited in the boat and Bendix leaned against her legs on this wonderful shady porch where her new life was to begin, something else new began, too. Something lovely.  

 

Bio  

USA Today bestselling author Liz Flaherty started writing in the fourth grade when her Aunt Gladys allowed her to use her portable Royal typewriter. The truth was that her aunt would have let her do anything to get her out of her hair, but the typewriter and the stories it could produce caught on, and Liz never again had a day without a what if… in it.  

She and Duane, her husband of at least forever, live in a farmhouse in central Indiana, sharing grown children, spoiled cats, and their grandkids, the Magnificent Seven. (Don’t get her started on them—you’ll be here all day.) To find out more about her, stop by http://lizflaherty.net/ or sign up for her newsletter at http://eepurl.com/df7dhP.