Release Date: January 5, 2015
(ebook) March 14, 2015 (print)
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The Love Brothers: A family saga with humor, heat and
heart—not to mention beer, bourbon and basketball!
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.
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.
Release Date: January 5, 2015
(ebook) March 14, 2015 (print)
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.
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.
Release Date: March 1, 2015
(ebook & audio) March 14, 2015 (print)
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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