I love having talented friends. Fellow Kentuckian and beer-enthusiast Liz Crowe has a new series starting soon, and I *cannot* wait. Plus, a bunch of authors are helping her celebrate with a 3-prize pack, multi-author giveaway. The Rafflecopter will be at the bottom of the post.
LOVE BROTHERS Trailer, produced by
Fiona Jayde Media, starring model Scott Nova, photography by Taria Reed.
Narrated by Daniel Dorse, who will record all the books for Audible.com
Embed link:
Love GarageBook 1
January 5, 2015 (ebook)
March 14, 2015 (Print)
Goodreads
Blurb
Antony Love is the quintessential responsible oldest brother of a
boisterous, Italian/Irish family, placed in charge at a young age by his
parents who are busy running the family business. He manages his siblings with
a fair but iron hand, until his life is shattered by personal tragedy leaving
him the shell of the man he once was.
When outspoken matriarch Lindsay Halloran Love becomes ill, the youngest
brother Aiden shows up at Antony's garage, having dropped out of school
(again), needing work and a place to crash. Antony provides both, with three
caveats: "Don't smoke in my truck, don't be late for work, and don't mess
with my girlfriend."
But Aiden Love, budding novelist, gets one glimpse of Rosalee Norris,
young widow of Antony's lifelong best friend and all bets are off.
Set in horse country
near Lexington, Kentucky, The Love
Brothers Series is a saga of family devotion that runs as wide and
deep as the Ohio River--except on Sundays when brothers Antony, Kieran, Dominic
and Aiden work out their frustrations on the basketball court, Love brother
style.
The Love Brothers: A
family saga with humor, heat and heart—not to mention beer, bourbon and
basketball.
Pre-order here!
Love Garage Excerpt:
Love Garage
opened bright and early the next morning, a Saturday, a day Aiden had hoped to
spend recovering.
“I get so many
oil changes and random small jobs on Saturdays, it doesn’t make sense to be
closed and let the jackasses with the Quickilube at Walmart get the business,”
Antony insisted when Aiden groaned with dismay upon being awakened after two
hours of drunken sleep. It didn’t help that the awakening occurred at the
business end of a thrown pillow. “Get up, Romeo. You owe me rent money.”
He did, slowly,
queasily hitting a shower, sore all over, his skin mottled from bug bites. But
nothing topped the glorious agony of a bourbon hangover like the one that had
him firmly in its evil grasp.
He slouched out
the door, cursing Antony, cursing Tricia, cursing her ex-husband for throwing
her in his path last night. But mostly cursing his own weak-ass uselessness. He
rested his head against the cool comfort of the truck window until Antony hit a
bump or two, which sent extra pain jolting down his spine.
“Sorry,” his
brother muttered, glancing over at him.
“No, you’re
not.”
“Got me there.
And you’d better warn me if you’re about to toss your cookies. I won’t have
that in my vehicle, got me?”
Aiden rubbed his
neck and nodded, swallowing the urge to throw up all over the pristine interior
on principal. “Why d’you hate me so much? You used to like me.” He stared over
at his brother, heart thumping, ears humming, throat closing up with nausea. He
despised waking up still drunk.
“I don’t hate
you.” Antony turned onto the main road headed into town.
“Could’ve fooled
me. You’re a real asshole anymore. Worse than Dom.”
Antony merely
shrugged, not rising to that tried-and-true bait. So they spent the rest of the
ride to the garage in silence. Once there, Antony sat gripping the wheel. Aiden
waited, hoping he’d get something out of him—something he would assure him that
the man he thought he remembered as the protective, funny, and loving guy he’d
grown up with still existed inside the guy walking around wearing Antony’s
skin.
Finally, he let
go of the wheel, exhaled, and squared his shoulders as if prepping for battle.
Aiden made a mental note to talk to Kieran about how badly Antony had descended
into his life of non-stop mourning and jerk-hood.
“So, Rosalee,
not putting out for you or what? You need to get laid maybe? Knock the edge
off?”
The glare Aiden
got for saying those particular words did make him worry Antony might punch his
aching head through the passenger-side window.
He clenched his
jaw in the way Aiden remembered from their childhood. “That is so far outside
the realm of your business as to be in another galaxy. Get to work and don’t
say her name to me again.”
And with that,
Aiden was left with the fleeting thought that mentioning Rosalee directly was
probably not a good idea. He surely didn’t need Antony to guess that her name
was on his lips, or front and center of his mind.
He shook his
head—a Bad Plan because it summoned the pounding agony back with a vengeance.
Groaning, he climbed out and shuffled over to the door.
A new day began
at Love Garage.
Pre order link available Dec. 15, 2014.
Coach Love
Book 2
January 5, 2015 (ebook)
March 14, 2015 (Print)
Blurb
The smoldering intensity of first love ~
the forbidden fantasy of temptation ~ the cold hard facts of real life.
When one man’s hopes are dashed apart in
a split second after years spent chasing a dream, he returns home to Kentucky
furious at the world and everyone around him.
Kieran Francesco is the middle son of the
volatile, tight-knit Halloran-Love family. His role as peacemaker and the one
true athlete is well established. He now faces life devoid of the sport he
adores after a horrific, career-ending accident, which places him in a new and
entirely uncomfortable position—that of the brother with no future.
Over the course of a few tumultuous
months Kieran is plunged back into life at the center of the Love family, where
he must cope with one self-destructive brother, one ill-timed reconnection to
an old flame and a series of bad choices that land him in more trouble than
he’d ever known existed.
COACH LOVE, book 2 of The Love Brothers,
a family saga of sibling loyalty that runs as deep and wide as the Ohio
River—at least until Sunday, when Antony, Kieran, Dominic and Aiden work out
their frustrations at the weekly Love brother pick-up basketball game.
Coach
Love EXCERPT:
As he drove the
twenty or so miles from his parents’ house into town Kieran’s head began to
clear. The windows were down and the tunes cranked. The sun shone. Signs of
summer--one of his favorite seasons--were all around him. Parks packed with
families, all the basketball courts and swimming pools overflowing. The sight
of a gaggle of boys on bikes riding alongside him for a while, singing along
with whatever random, crappy rap song currently polluted the airwaves made him
smile.
“Hey, it’s
Kieran Love!” one of the punks shouted after a few blocks. “Can you come over
and shoot a few with us?”
He waved and
drove on, gratified but sad, the sound of their cheerful unhappiness at his
refusal filling his ears, taking the stretch of four lane road at seventy miles
an hour, pressing the gas pedal to the floor, the throaty, powerful roar of the
car’s engine revving him from head to toe.
It would be all
right because he and Melinda loved each other. They had from the moment they’d
met. He passed some grandpa in a Toyota, as the deep green fields surrounded by
picturesque white fences and dotted with horses filled both sides of his
vision.
He’d been home
and recuperating from radical knee surgery with the best prognosis he could
hope for after such a nasty break--to walk normally, much less play the
occasional pick up game. His depression had been deep, wide, and terrifying. He
woke every day at his parents’ house, unwilling even to get out of bed, not that
he could without help for the first few weeks.
Antony had
tossed a laptop computer at him one day when he’d been sulking, unshaven, and
eating an entire bag of potato chips, something he’d not done since the age of
ten when his fate--bound for basketball fame and fortune--had been determined.
“Here, find a
job, find a date, find something,” he’d said before yanking the empty chip bag
away and smacking Kieran’s head hard enough to make his ears ring.
“Ow. Leave me
alone, asshole. I’m grievously injured,” he’d said, not caring about the
swear-free zone he inhabited.
“That’s three
dollars young man,” his mother had called out from the kitchen.
“You live with
this, jerk, and see how you feel about finding ‘a date.’“ He’d hooked his
fingers around the words, heart in his throat at how badly he’d wanted to call
Cara right then.
But by the next
weekend he was caning and limping his way toward the door to some faux-fancy
Italian restaurant in Lexington, rubbing his freshly shaved face and trying not
to sweat through his dress shirt. The woman from the internet site sat at the
bar, twirling an olive-laden swizzle stick in her martini glass, long, slim,
bare legs crossed, feet encased in sky-high patent leather heels. He’d exhaled,
beyond relived that he’d not been cat-fished by some troll, or worse, a dude.
He’d hesitated
then, something in him telling him to turn around and leave, fast. But at that
moment, she’d flashed him the whitest, most perfect smile he’d ever seen and
he’d been hooked. He still didn’t know how. They’d gone out for three weeks
before she let him kiss her. It’d been another three weeks before he got
anywhere near her tits. It had been a solid four months before he scored but
that encounter had been, in a word, epic.
Melinda liked to
talk dirty, wear heels and a garter belt while he fucked her. Loved doing it
with all the lights on and in semi-public places. She gave head like a pro at
first, before he’d given her an engagement ring.
Her bitchiness
had come across as extreme decisiveness, sort of hot in way, he’d admit, since
he tended toward the spontaneous and unplanned--”wishy washy” as he now
understood it thanks to Melinda’s re-categorization of his personality. Her
tight grip on her emotions and her surroundings, the OCD way she ordered her
life did grate on him at times but he figured she tolerated his innate
sloppiness and willingness to wake on a Sunday without a plan in place for the
rest of the day. When he realized he sat across from her at some overpriced,
hipster restaurant near her office after going out with her for eight months,
ready to present her with a ring he could barely afford, it had shocked him
without seeming to even faze her.
“Well, of course
I’ll marry you, but you’ve got to find a better job,” she’d drawled as she
sipped her champagne.
“A new job?”
He’d gotten the teaching gig at his old high school and couldn’t imagine any
job he’d want or like better. She made six figures for Christ’s sake, at least
he thought she did.
Elated, drunk
with lust and achievement, he’d tried to get his long legs adjusted under the
small table jammed between all the others and covered with small plates of
“tapas” which, best he could tell were “appetizers” only twice the price and
half the helpings.
“I’ll do
anything you want, Melinda. You saved me, honest to God you did.”
She’d fluttered
her inky black lashes and gazed at him with an expression that convinced him
he’d made the drastic move for the right reasons. The following year had been a
combination of frustration, anger and high school level blue balls. The double
drama Antony and Aiden had foisted on the Love family during that time hadn’t
helped but it had distracted him. He’d taught his classes, helped out with the
basketball team pro bono without telling Melinda and had been happier than he’d
ever been as a pro athlete.
The fact that
she maintained her uber-bitch persona around his family killed him. But he was
hooked.
Still.
Mostly.
******
Love Brewing
Book 3
March 1, 2015 (ebook)
March 14, 2015 (Print)
Blurb:
Every family has one—the black sheep,
the problem child, the prodigal. But Dominic Sean Love could teach all of those
guys a lesson or two. Stuck in the middle of a boisterous group of siblings,
he’s given “acting out” a new meaning from the day he drew his first breath.
While he’s the one son who follows his
strict father’s footsteps into the Love family business, he’s also the one who
butts heads with him the hardest. Their epic clashes are the stuff of family
legend. But they have made peace and work side by side to take Love Brewing to
the next level of success.
Until Dominic does the one thing his
father can never forgive.
Diana Brantley has been Dominic’s
friend, girlfriend and ex-girlfriend so many times she’s lost count. When he
shows up at the farm she’s slowly transforming into a wildly popular
farm-to-table resource for restaurants all over the U.S. her first impulse is
to shoot first and ask questions later. But she doesn’t. And their lives
entwine once more, for good, bad and ugly.
Working
(pre-edited) Excerpt:
Dominic would
give anything be able to talk to Kieran. They’d gotten close in the last months
since he’d required a rather alarming rescue from a jail down in Georgia and
his brother had shown up, very few questions asked. But no, Kieran had his own
issues and likely at that very moment was busy trying to convince his high
school girlfriend to marry him, even as she was poised and ready to marry
someone else.
“You need dry
clothes,” Diana said, interrupting his pity party.
He shrugged and
kept his gaze fixed on the view of rain. “Your garden looks like shit. When’s
the last time you bothered to pull weeds?”
She snorted. He
smiled. He used to love it when she’d do that. He’d honestly had no intention
of showing up here today. The Brantley farm remained way off the beaten track,
if the track around Lucasville could be considered “beaten” in any way. When
he’d raced out of the stifling hot sanctuary and hotwired Kieran’s car he’d
driven off without a single thought in his addled head other than “escape.”
But when he’d
finally released his death grip on the steering wheel he’d looked through the
windshield and found himself facing the old two-story farmhouse where he’d lost
his virginity—not to Diana but to her sister Jen, an older version of the girl
he’d been hanging around with since God was a boy. The whooshing sound that had
deafened him for the last couple of days had receded ever so slightly at the
sight of the place.
He’d not been
anywhere near it in over six years, ever since he’d run out here to get solace
from Diana when Gina had bolted for New York. Her reaction to his surprise
visit had been decidedly less hostile then. He groaned and ran a hand down his
wet face.
No one to blame but yourself for this reception, numb nuts.
As if on cue, one of the dogs whined and
bumped his leg with its huge muzzle.
“Bossy bitch,”
he said softly, giving her another scratch behind the ears. The animal gazed at
him adoringly.
Yeah, at least
dogs always loved him.
He glanced up
and caught sight of Diana tugging on something dry that looked way too big for
her. The sight of it sent a thrill of something he didn’t want to acknowledge
as jealousy down his spine.
You have less
than no place being jealous of anything about her, he reminded himself. She
stared at him as she buttoned up the light blue, obviously man-sized shirt. He
had to restrain himself from blinking too fast at the onrushing memories threatening
to mow him down.
“Put on a few
pounds eh Di?” he said, leaning back against the rough barn wall. The dog
practically crawled up onto the hay bale and laid its head in his lap. Damn
thing weighed over eighty pounds and smelled like rancid pond water, but he
didn’t stop it.
“Fuck you,” she
said, turning away and giving him a lovely view of the backs of her slim,
tanned legs. “Come up to the house and get some dry clothes on, you dumbass.”
She stood there, wearing that shirt that made his chest tight, pondering where
it had come from, her legs bare and beautiful. It made him want to weep. He set
his jaw and turned away from her.
“I missed you
and your ladylike ways,” he said, almost absently, as he turned back to study
the rain pounding against the window. “Ow!” The towel pop flicked his neck,
then his thigh. “Damn girl, you on your period or what?” He rubbed his leg and
noted that he was, indeed, soaked through and could use a change of clothes.
Too bad he hadn’t thought of that when he ran away from what remained of his
former life.
“I can feel your
crybaby BS from clear across this barn,” she said. “Makes me wanna laugh.”
He turned fast,
angry at her words. But her gaze comforted him. And suddenly, he realized why
he’d found himself here, on what could be labeled as the worst day of his
sorry-ass thirty years.
“How’d married
life work out for ya,” he said, shoving the dog off his lap and getting to his
feet.
“How d’you
think? I mean, I’m sure it was the talk of the town.” She kept staring at him,
not moving. For a split second, Dom found himself headed toward her, needing to
feel her skin, taste her lips. But he stood, keeping the four or so feet
between them, the dogs milling around their ankles making worried noises. An
errant drop of water fell from a lock of hair over his eyes. The moment felt
fraught and he cursed himself for causing her pain, again. And again.
“Well, I guess
the guy was lucky to escape with his balls intact,” he said, finally. “You’re
still as ugly as homemade sin,” he lied.
The corner of
her lips lifted. He let himself exhale.
It was on now.
And he knew she’d let him stay here as long as he needed.
**************
Amazon
best-selling author, beer blogger, brewery marketing expert, mom of three, and
soccer fan, Liz Crowe is a Kentucky native and graduate of the University of
Louisville currently living in Ann Arbor. She has decades of experience in
sales and fund raising, plus an eight-year stint as a three-continent, ex-pat
trailing spouse.
Her
early forays into the publishing world led to a groundbreaking fiction
subgenre, “Romance for Real Life,” which has gained thousands of fans and
followers interested less in the “HEA” and more in the “WHA” (“What Happens
After?”). More recently she is garnering even more fans across genres with her
latest novels, which are more character-driven fiction, while remaining very
much “real life."
With
stories set in the not-so-common worlds of breweries, on the soccer pitch, in
successful real estate offices and at times in exotic locales like Istanbul,
Turkey, her books are unique and told with a fresh voice. The Liz Crowe
backlist has something for any reader seeking complex storylines with humor and
complete casts of characters that will delight, frustrate and linger in the
imagination long after the book is finished.
Don’t
ever ask her for anything “like a Budweiser” or risk bodily injury.
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