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 

 

Murder at the Water Wheel by Ruben D. Gonzales

Murder at the Water Wheel

Book Four of the Black Mountain Mystery Series

by Ruben D. Gonzales

Amazon Link

Book Blurb:

When Liz’s latest fiancé turns up dead in the pond of Black Mountain’s new Historic Water Wheel tourist trap, it turns the town upside down. With a promising holiday season approaching and small businesses up and down Main Street depending on the sales, Mayor Franklyn Shaw asks Emma to look into the case of her ex-sister-in-law, so business, including the Shaw’s businesses, will get back to normal and people’s jobs will be saved. Although hesitant to add the task to her already busy photography business and publishing the biweekly Black Mountain Post, Emma decides to look into the case when Liz’s former boyfriend is arrested for the murder. Will Emma’s ancestral gift of aura reading be enough to solve the case or will an innocent man take the blame and a murderer go free? 

Excerpt:

Chapter One 

Saturday at Dawn

Like most people, I enjoy a good wedding. Especially when it is someone else’s. But when my big brother’s widow told me that she and Trent Cochran planned to get married in the fall, I thought it was a bit premature. I mean, Becky had only just started seeing the guy. Did she even know Trent? I mean, really know him. Can any of us say we really know a person? 

Now, I admit he was good looking, in a tall, dark, and lean way, but getting married? Wow! 

“So, what happened to Drew Carter,” I asked when I saw her after I heard her wedding plans, trying to remember if Becky had told me why she ended it with her former boyfriend. “I thought you and Drew were hot for each other. He’s such a nice guy.” 

“Drew’s nice, Emma,” she told me then, “but he doesn’t have ambition. He’s just happy to be working at the lumber mill for fifteen dollars an hour. I need someone with more ambition. You know, I have my boys to worry about. Trent has more ambition.” 

“What about Eddie Jordan,” I had asked about another nice guy she saw after my big brother, her husband, was murdered. We all grew up with Eddie and now he coached at the Black Mountain High School. 

“All Eddie wanted to do was play games. He wasn’t serious about anything if it didn’t involve sports.” 

Of course, all that ambition or seriousness doesn’t do you any good if you end up dead the morning of your wedding. 

Becky’s opinion aside, I always had mix feelings about Trent, especially his dark orange aura. The color of an aura I associate with people who can’t make commitments. 

I’ve always been able to see a person’s aura. When I was young I thought everyone could. It wasn’t until my grandmother, Louise Looking Bird, explained that my aura reading ability was handed down to me by my Cherokee ancestors. A special gift that not just everyone had. 

I use my aura reading gift in my portrait photography. I found I got the best results if I clicked the shutter at the moment of a subject’s aura’s rightest moment. My old editor praised my work saying, my shots captured the real essence of people, and their likeness was so real it was as if the subject was only caught between breaths. 

So, the wedding plan went forward and the morning after the big rehearsal dinner Trent Cochran threw at the Shaw Winery, I donned my heavy parka, grabbed my camera, and clenching my teeth, I went for a walk with my dog, Blue. The old pro photographers I used to work with always said never go anywhere without your camera because you never know what you might see. 

The first freeze of the season swooped down the mountain in the morning catching the small mountain town in a surprise early winter of ice and cold. The kind of cold you meet with strong hot coffee and double layers of clothes. Since I was out so early, I thought I’d take a few photos of the sunrise over the frozen town. 

My dog, Blue, never feels the cold like people, so pulled on her leash dragging me along, happy to be outside. I got Blue as a gift for solving a murder two years ago and we started a rough get acquainted period but came out the other end better for our trial. We’ve settled into kind of a mother - teenage daughter type of life together, in the little mountain town of Black Mountain I moved back to after swearing I never would. Except in this relationship, Blue was more the mother and me more the daughter. 

We walked along a tributary of the Swannanoa River, right before a wide bend that flows at the northern edge of town. In the old days, like a hundred and fifty years ago, before electricity, the river’s powerful flow turned a big water wheel at the mill. It drove the saw that cut the lumber and crushed the grain that made the Shaw family the richest in the Valley of the Three Forks. 

Although I’m part Shaw, I’ve tended to shy away from the recognition because they are a greedy bunch. The Shaw family owns just about everything in town including the bank, general store, real estate company, and the renovated historic water wheel where they sell tourist souvenirs, mountain crafts, wine from their vineyard, and baked goods from the community women who make the best pies in the state. 

In a major irony, it appeared that I inherited the same business genetic make-up that drove the founding fathers of the Shaw clan. I returned to my childhood home to open my own business, a photography studio. A good many people, mostly men, laughed at my choice of an enterprise since these days everyone carries a phone camera and thinks of themselves as the next Ansel Adams. But through a varied menu of services and products I’ve managed to survive in the business world, thank you very much. 

At the bend in the river, where Main Street straightens out, Blue and I approached a trio of County Sheriff cruisers, lights flashing in the early morning light, and several red trucks and a vehicle from the volunteer rescue squad. A big crowd started to form in front of the historic water wheel complex. Not one to miss an opportunity to capture a moment, I clicked off several shots of the flashing lights reflecting off the water, with the mill a dark shadow looming over the scene. 

“What’s going on?” I asked Shelby Shaw when I saw her in front of the mill. Shelby is the mayor’s wife and the manager of the mill. As she stood outside the yellow taped off area, I shot a profile of her with the mill in the background. Even in the morning her aura brimmed out in a dark gold, a sign of people having trouble.  

“I can’t believe it,” she moaned. 

“What?” 

“I found Trent Cochran, down in the water wheel pond,” she said. “Looks like he’s dead.” 

Author Bio:

I was born and raised in East LA. After college I spent two years with the Peace Corps teaching elementary school in a small African village by day and reading and writing by candlelight at night. Before I retired from full time work, I was Director of Development for the City of Winston-Salem, NC and spent many seasons traveling throughout the small towns in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Now I write full time and teach part-time with the local community college system.  

My first novel of historical fiction was, The Cottage on the Bay, published by Moonshine Cove Publishing and came out in 2018 and my second book, Murder on Black Mountain, the first in a mystery series, came out in 2020 from Fire Star Press. The second book in my Black Mountain Mystery series came out in 2022 by Indigo Sea Press, the third book in the series came out in June 2023, and the fourth book in the series released in August 2025. I have a recent mystery book, Cabana Bay, published with The Wild Rose Press released on May 14, 2025, and an action/adventure book released on September 22, 2025.  

 

Honor Bound by Katherine Grey

Honor Bound

An Echo Company Novel

by Katherine Grey

Buy Link

Blurb:

Bound by honor...tempted by desire 

 

California “Callie” St. John knows just how much one night of rebellion can cost. After narrowly escaping a car bombing, she is forced to acknowledge she needs a bodyguard, just not the one chosen for her. He pushes her buttons and forces his way past her defenses. While she fights to keep the secret that destroyed her family, she worries she's trusting her bodyguard more than she should. 

 

Lieutenant James “Hawk” Hawkins, a member of a special ops unit of soldiers with extra-ordinary abilities, believes acting as a bodyguard to the daughter of one of DC's movers and shakers is a waste of his talents. But as he comes to know the woman behind the icy façade, he realizes she is more than she seems.  

 

When a dangerous enemy from Hawk’s past targets Callie, he’s willing to risk everything to keep her safe. But succumbing to temptation isn't an option...no matter how much he wants to give in. Because secrets always come to light, and the past is never forgotten. 

Excerpt:

William St. John turned to his daughter. “A bomb was planted in your car. You’re lucky you escaped with unharmed. Perhaps now you’ll take the threats against you seriously.” “Those things could have happened to anyone. Before tonight any of them could have been a coincidence.” Jimmy stared at her. Nobody could be that naïve. “There’s no such thing as coincidence.” She glared at him, her eyes sparking with anger, showing exactly what she thought about the situation. “As I seem to have no option but to have you follow me around like a lost dog, let me be clear. I will not be changing my daily routine. You will be unobtrusive and remain in the background when I’m in public.” She ticked off her rules on her fingers. Jimmy crossed his arms over his chest and waited for her to finish. Her slight British accent made her sound as though she was royalty giving orders to the peasants. “Your presence won’t be needed when I’m at home or with friends. Understood?” He took a step forward. “You listen to me, Duchess--” “I’m not a duchess. If I were, you would address me as ‘Your Grace.’” She sounded even haughtier if that was possible. “I’m charged with your safety. I will be the one laying the ground rules,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “So until any threat to you is removed, I’ll be sticking closer to you than your panties on a hot July night. Got it?”

Author Bio:

Katherine Grey writes contemporary romances with a hint of the paranormal. She lives in upstate NY with her family. When she’s not writing, she can be found up to her elbows in flour trying out new cookie recipes. 

Social Media Links:  Facebook    Bookbub   Goodreads 

 

Then the Earth Moved by Mary Georgina De Grey

Then the Earth Moved

by Mary Georgina De Grey

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The subject of today’s Spotlight is Then the Earth Moved, a novel set in the Abruzzo region of Italy. I’m a mountain person, so this was particularly pleasant to write. 

Book Blurb:

Talented designer Isla Bruni is keen to widen her experience before setting up her own interiors business, so she accepts an exchange with a top studio located in an Italian hilltop town. She doesn’t trust Italian men – after all, hasn’t she had a good reason? But irresistible, sexy entrepreneur Edmondo Benedetti turns her carefully ordered life upside down. How can she realize her ambitions without sacrificing love? Only when she’s thrust into danger does she begin to understand what is important. 

The past is the past. Yet if secrets buried there resurface, could they destroy her future? 

 Excerpt: 

Isla bristled. 

“No, I didn’t! Why would I do that? What are you implying?” 

“Anti-plastic garbage. You might be from one of these groups. Lot of skewed thinking from people like that.” 

She broke into a peal of laughter but looked angry, a dangerous spark in her eyes. 

“What? That’s ridiculous! So, you reckon you didn’t manage to convince me with your well-referenced arguments,” she said, layering on the sarcasm. “And now, I’m a convenient scapegoat. Maybe you shouldn’t have left me in here on my own! Maybe you’re the one who’s responsible.” 

Pietro flushed bright red, and his eyes bulged as if he were one of his own safety valves, about to blow. 

“Hold on, hold on, Pietro. It’s upsetting, but you can’t blame the signorina,” said Edmondo. It was reassuring that in spite of her injury, Isla was clearly not about to collapse and, in fact, was giving every bit as good as she got. 

“For a start, I suggested the tour. And she didn’t hit herself on the head.”  

“Yeah – and how well do you know this woman? What if she’s working with someone?”  

“That’s enough! I suggest you apologize now. You have nothing to base this argument on, and you insult Signorina Bruni. And me.” He stared hard at the older man. “And that is not a good thing, my friend.” 

Isla raised her head at the tone of his voice, glimpsing the tough, successful businessman behind the suave exterior. 

 Then the Earth Moved published by The Wild Rose Press. 

Author Bio:

After a children’s adventure story in my early 20s, which sank immediately, I wrote no fiction until about ten years ago. I was creating languages courses for schools and one editor asked me to produce a pack of French short stories and poems – and I was off on my writer’s journey: I enjoyed this dip into fiction so much, I had to write a novel. But life was busy, and it wasn’t until lockdown that I began to write seriously. As a linguist, I find it logical to use the setting of countries I’ve lived and worked in, and this forces me to try to understand the culture and how it affects anyone with a different background. Stuck at home, I wanted to travel, and Italy glowed in my mind as a desirable place to visit, and so my first published novel began. Then The Earth Moved was published in March 2023. The main character in my novels is always a strong young woman determined to make her way in the world and each novel has a love story at its centre. I live on the beautiful English Riviera in the UK with my artist husband where I indulge in my passions of writing, reading and creating things, especially in fabric. Website: https://marygeorginadegreyauthor.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100086424198194 Email: marygeorginadg@gmail.com for newsletter and other enquiries. I have since written three further novels, two of which are romances: Then the Earth Moved https://amzn.eu/d/fNtaXHK (Italy) Let Love Find a Way https://amzn.eu/d/gHMpQkC (Wales and Colombia) Then Time Stands Still https://amzn.eu/d/1pGgH5Q (Spain) The Disappeared is romantic suspense and not yet published. (Colombia)

 

The Last Broken Girl by Cynthia Rice

The Last Broken Girl

by Cynthia Rice

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Blurb

In THE LAST BROKEN GIRL, a psychologist fights to save her young daughters, her career and possibly even her sanity when the woman who kidnapped and terrorized her as a teen resurfaces, hiding in the shadows, and forcing her to revisit her painful ordeal to survive. 

Excerpt

Erin climbed back under the covers and switched back to the interior cameras. She scanned room by room. Finally, she watched over the girls, asleep in their beds. This had been her routine since they had been born. She leaned back against the headboard and shut her eyes. She breathed in for three seconds, out for four seconds. Over and over. Tonight, the familiar routine didn’t help. She finally gave up, sat forward, and snatched her phone off the nightstand. 

She turned her attention to the on-line News-Journal. It was the lead article, as Lindsey had described. 

“Convicted Kidnapper Stanley Duggan granted parole hearing with possible release after June hearing.” The article went on to summarize the months of captivity which had destroyed her life twenty years ago and haunted her still. He described the question of a female accomplice, seen only by traumatized young Erin, and authorities were not sure she existed. Duggan had denied having an accomplice. Fuck them. She had no doubt Veronica was alive and watching. 

At the bottom of the article, it mentioned “Erin Moore-Jackson still lives in the area with her husband and two young daughters, with a Psychology practice with Meadowview Center in Lake Delton, Wisconsin. She could not be reached for comment.” 

She checked her phone’s call log and saw there were no missed calls. The reporter hadn’t even tried to reach her, and he had no business mentioning her girls and her place of employment.  

After studying each security camera feed again, she threw off the covers, tiptoed down to the kitchen and topped off another glass of red wine. She settled on the living room couch and wrapped a throw around her legs, clutching her glass so tightly she was afraid it would shatter in her hand as the pen had done earlier in the day. She would not be sleeping that night. 

Author Bio

Mystery and suspense author Cynthia Rice is a physician living in the Milwaukee area and a proud member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and International Thriller Writers. Her debut novel, The Last Broken Girl, is set in rural Wisconsin where she has strong ties. The novel won the 2023 Claymore Award in the category of suspense. Additionally, she has A short story in the February 2025 released anthology, Gone Fishin’: Crime Takes a Holiday. When she’s not working on her next novel, Cynthia keeps busy reading, traveling, and playing mediocre golf and tennis. 

 

The Unmasking by Adriana Kraft

The Unmasking

by Adriana Kraft

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IDVB6KQ/  

Heat Rating: Four Flames 

BLURB 

Whose mask will crumble first—  

the enigmatic professor of Celtic Studies,  

the undercover cop masquerading as a co-ed,  

or the campus stalker,  

biding his time to strike again? 

 

Is anthropology professor Matt Bayfield the Blackthorn College rapist, or a potential ally? Aloof and unapproachable, Matt has academic ambitions. He can’t escape Blackthorn College soon enough, and he doesn’t want any entanglements to slow down his exit.  

 

Nancy Appleby would like nothing more than to solve the string of campus rape cases before Thanksgiving so she can go home. The last thing she wants is a relationship to complicate her life—but she’ll settle for a fling, especially when the sex sizzles.  

 

The stalker has his own carefully crafted timetable, with a special date just for Nancy. Can Matt and Nancy force him out of his hidey-hole before it’s too late? 

 

  

 

EXCERPT 

Chapter One 

 

Who will be the next victim? 

 

Nancy Appleby scanned the co-eds in the small lecture hall. Each could be his next prey. Each looked much younger than she remembered being as a full-time student. Each woman hung on Professor Bayfield’s well crafted words.  

 

Was it the topic, Celtic Myths and Rituals, or was it the aloofness of the tall, dark-haired lecturer with the strong protruding chin that mesmerized? He did command attention. Although his tone was mild, Bayfield played with his audience like a polished actor. Clearly he was in control. Though he gestured but rarely, he moved like an athlete, comfortable in his body. 

 

Nancy jotted notes on a yellow pad pretending to be no different than anyone else in the room. She glanced up at Bayfield, whose eyes had settled on her; they were piercing and inquisitive. Then he shifted his gaze, but he’d noticed her, was thinking about her. Why? She’d done everything she could to blend in. He hadn’t seemed particularly troubled by her presence, just curious. 

 

Nancy redirected her attention to the individuals sitting in front of her. She’d arrived early to claim an aisle seat in the back row. The raised auditorium layout provided an advantageous observation post. About sixty women and twenty men were in attendance, no doubt a decent turnout. Blackthorn College had a student body of less than two thousand. 

 

Nancy scribbled more notes and then focused on the men in the room. 

 

Was he in the lecture hall? Would he strike again, tonight? Or would the rapist stay in his hole, biding his time? 

 

ABOUT ADRIANA KRAFT 

 

Adriana Kraft is the pen name for a married pair of retired professors writing erotic romance together. We like to think we’ve broken the mold for staid, fusty academics, and we hope lots of former profs are enjoying life as much as we are.  

Having lived in many states across the Midwest, we now make our home in southern Arizona, where we enjoy hiking, golf, and travel, especially to the many Arizona Native American historical sites.  

Together we have published more than fifty romance novels and novellas to outstanding reviews. We love hearing from readers at adrianakraft99@yahoo.com, and here is our website: https://www.adrianakraft.com  

 

LINKS 

Blog: https://www.adrianakraft.com/blog  

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Twitter https://twitter.com/AdrianaKraft  

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/adriana.kraft.5  

FaceBook Fan Page https://www.facebook.com/AdrianaKraftAuthor  

Amazon Author Page https://www.amazon.com/author/adrianakraft  

GoodReads https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1578571.Adriana_Kraft 

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/kraftadriana/  

BookBub https://www.bookbub.com/authors/adriana-kraft 

Extasy Books Page https://www.extasybooks.com/adriana-kraft