Love Garage
Book 1
January 5, 2015 (ebook)
March 14, 2015 (Print)
Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22294474-love-garage
PRE ORDER: http://www.amazon.com/Love-Garage-The-Brothers-Book-ebook/dp/B00P4GJCL8
Love Garage
http://amzn.com/B00P4GJCL8
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.
Love Garage Excerpt:
“I
hope you don’t think I’m gonna hire you because you’re my baby brother. No,
wait. My lazy, bookworm, useless baby brother, who’s gone and dropped out of
that expensive, fancy writing school he just had to get into, and now shows up
here at my business, in this ole
backwater, hillbilly town...broke and looking like he’s been dragged through a
knothole.”
Aiden
flinched in the face of Antony’s fury. His hands curled into fists deep inside
his trouser pockets, as a too-familiar rush of anger threatened to consume him.
He waited and watched, seeking visual cues from their growing up years. Antony
merely leaned against the tallest worktable, slowly wiping off some kind of a
wrench with a blue cloth, his dark eyes inscrutable.
The
sounds of a busy garage swirled around them, filling the real and virtual space
between Aiden and the man who’d been his protector and friend his entire life.
That gaping hole he’d placed there, with his casual disregard for his family
and seeking escape from this very hillbilly backwater. Those were the words
he’d used not that long ago. Flung back at him in Antony’s overblown,
exaggerated redneck accent, they stung like ice pellets.
Not
for the first time, Aiden deeply regretted the effort he’d made to keep
distance between them—from all his brothers—for the last seven-and-a-half
years. It had seemed the right thing then, with him in the full flush of his
heady personal expectations as the next Great American Novel Author.
He
gulped, and forced his voice to remain steady. Heaven knows he’d had plenty of
years to practice not rising to Antony’s bait.
“Yes…um,
well, kind of. Yeah. That is what I’m thinking.” He ran a hand around the back
of his neck while Antony observed him without moving or speaking—barely even
blinking.
The bastard isn’t going to make
this easy, is he?
Aiden
cleared his throat and tried to find the right words. They failed him.
“Never
mind.” He turned to shoulder his way through the grease monkeys peopling
Antony’s successful auto-repair joint. His head buzzed with exhaustion from his
trip “riding the dog,” as he’d learned his trip by Greyhound bus was named, and
anxiety over the reason he’d made it.
As
he reached for the office door, after making it all the way across the garage,
a distinct noise like resignation hit his ears.
Ridiculous,
of course. He could barely think amidst all the garage noise, let alone hear
his oldest brother heaving his patented sigh from all the way across it. But
Aiden turned anyway, knowing, somehow, that he had.
Antony
remained propped against the workbench, still clutching the blue rag. Still
staring holes into Aiden. “You don’t even know how to change the oil on a late
model pickup. You’re about useful as tits on a bull.”
Aiden
squared his shoulders and tried to look somewhat more useful than that.
“Maybe,
but I can clean up after the guys who do know how, or I can keep your books,
update your website, get you active on Facebook and Twitter and—” That sounded
desperate. But he might as well own that, too.
“I
don’t use any of that shit.” Antony dropped the rag on the bench and scowled as
an employee rolled a couple of tires by him. “I don’t need it. I have more work
than I can handle now.”
“Yeah?
Well, maybe you should think about it. What happens when the work dries up?”
Antony
let out a distinctly unpleasant-sounding laugh. “Little bro, you obviously
missed class the day they talked about the recession-proof businesses.” He held
up three fingers. “Cars always need fixing. People always need to drink beer.
Kids always need teaching. By my calculations, the Love family is pretty
fuckin’ smart. But for one of us, I guess.”
Aiden
bit the inside of his cheek to keep from lashing back in defense then tried a
different tactic.
“Mama
is sick. You forget that? Ever think maybe I came home to be here for her?” He
had to shut his eyes for a split second to dispel the concept of a world
without the formidable Lindsay Halloran Love in it.
Antony
grunted and headed toward one of the four lifts. Each had a car hoisted on it
and a guy underneath, messing around with whatever they did under there. He
reached up and fiddled with something beneath what looked like a big black
Mercedes sedan, ignoring Aiden. Given that he had no other viable option, Aiden
let him.
His
sister had broken the news about their mother to him four days earlier, around
5:00 p.m. He’d never forget the moment—since it happened to be the same day
he’d discovered he’d failed a poetry-writing seminar, plus made a serious
miscalculation by drinking too much and then coming on to a hot professor at a
department social event. He’d seen her next day at the panel “discussion” of
his final novel.
Lack of clear plot progression,
shallow characters and poor dialogue choices, had been the
gist of their “advice.”
Jerks. Wouldn’t know a decent,
modern plot if it bit them all in the collective ass.
So what if I want to actually make money
with a book, and not just collect a lot of critical admiration?
Shifting
from foot to foot, he calculated how long Antony would make him stand there
like a supplicant before he caved. Because cave he would. Aiden understood
enough about his eldest sibling to realize that. The strains of the latest Luke
Bryan song wafted around, chafing his exposed nerve endings.
As
Aiden watched, Antony finished under the Merc and hit the button to lower it
back to the garage floor. Then he spent a solid ten minutes consulting beneath
the hood of a late model F-150, another five wiping down a set of tools, and
ten more fiddling with his phone. But Aiden didn’t say anything, lest he break
into the man’s thought pattern. That would only trigger his temper—the last
thing Aiden needed at that moment.
Memories
of angry explosions past made him sigh, rub the back of his neck, and touch his
still-crooked nose. While the Love siblings were fiercely loyal to each
other—they maintained zero tolerance for bullshit between them. He took a step
backward, regretting his decision to come here first, as opposed to the brewery
on the west side of town to beg his father to hire him to pour beer, shift
kegs, or hose out brewing equipment, mainly because that would also mean facing
Dominic. Between them all, he’d much rather deal with Antony.
He
refocused when Antony frowned at him, as if sensing his sudden mental flinch.
Aiden
raised an eyebrow in a “well, I’m very busy, and important, and require an
answer” sort of way. His stomach churned, reminding him of the disgusting fast
food he’d inhaled earlier. He hated being the screw-up little brother. Honest
to God, he hated it, almost as much as he despised the country music pounding
on his eardrums right then.
Coach Love
Book 2
January 5, 2015 (ebook)
March 14, 2015 (Print)
PRE ORDER: http://www.amazon.com/Coach-Love-The-Brothers-Book-ebook/dp/B00PHLU0CK/ref=pd_sim_kstore_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=1D02RP3JEMB0R34NZD53
Coach Love http://amzn.com/B00PHLU0CK
Coach Love http://amzn.com/B00PHLU0CK
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:
“Hey,
is that your redheaded Love?”
Cara
turned to see where her friend was pointing. “Yep.” Heat crept up her neck. “So
what?”
“So,
he is looking fine,” the other woman said. “Why’d you dump that delicious
ginger anyway?”
“You
know why,” Cara muttered, angry Kieran had chosen the one place in the newly
face-lifted downtown that she figured he’d never visit. He hated wine. Or at
least, he used to when they could only afford the cheap stuff.
“Funny
how those boys all ended up back home,” Tricia said into her glass.
Cara
recalled that her friend had experienced her own run-in with Aiden, right after
he’d wandered home to Kentucky over a year ago.
“Yeah,
hilarious,” she quipped, making Tricia giggle. “Stupid Love brothers.”
“I’ll
drink to that.” Tricia raised her glass. They both observed the tall man
squinting into the dark interior as if looking for someone. When he caught
sight of them, he waved and headed in their direction. “Uh oh, old boyfriend
time. That’s my cue to go.”
Cara
reached for the other woman’s arm. “Don’t you dare leave me here with him,
Patricia.” She could barely hear anything thanks to her wild heartbeat. “I mean
it. I see him every week at PT and that’s bad enough. I can’t...be social with
him. Not now. Not after....”
Tricia
sighed. “Good Lord. Whatever. I swan those Loves are gonna be the death of me
yet.”
Relieved
that she’d have someone to run interference if she needed it, Cara tried not to
admit that she needed Tricia to keep her from getting drunk and jumping her old
boyfriend’s bones for old time’s sake. Even the thought of that made her
furious with her weak-willed self.
I have a fiancé, a rich one, a hot
one, and have zero business doing anything more than having casual conversation
with Kieran Love.
“Well,
what a lovely couple of ladies,” he said as he sauntered over, dressed for a
date. She tried not to stare at the stubble on his jaw, or the slope of his
shoulders, or at that thick mop of bright-red hair that matched her own, or at
anything related to him. He loomed over her, making her blink.
Oh boy. I’m gone halfway to
drunk-town already. This could get weird.
“It
would seem I’m early for my date. May I buy you both a glass?”
“Sure
thing. Why the hell not?”
The
exasperation in Tricia’s voice came through loud and clear, so Cara attempted
to say something coherent but all the spit in her mouth had gone dry. He
climbed onto a tall chair next to her and propped his dress-shirt-covered
elbows on the bar. The urge to run her fingers through his hair made her palms
itch. When their glasses arrived he raised his for a toast.
“To
what are we drinking?” Tricia asked.
His
gaze met hers and she had to bite her tongue to keep from saying something
stupid. “To old friends.”
She
sipped then spluttered and coughed when the acidic red wine went down her
windpipe. Kieran smacked her between the shoulder blades. When it became
apparent she would live, he resumed his study of the middle distance over the
bar. Without thinking of possible consequences, she touched his khaki-covered
thigh.
“You
all right?” she asked, catching a whiff of the light cologne and beer that
encircled him. He glanced over at her, which placed his face too near hers. But
she didn’t move until he pecked her lips quickly then focused on the depths of
his wine glass as if it held the very secrets to the universe. Tricia elbowed
her so hard Cara yelped and rubbed her arm.
“Old
friends, huh,” Tricia said around her to the obviously brooding man. “I don’t
know about you boys. I just don’t know.”
He
frowned then glanced over his shoulder when someone came in the door. When it
proved to be some other couple he slumped over the bar again. Fury at his woman
for dissing him tonight, and at her own lame, ancient excuses for letting go of
him in the first place filled her brain.
To
her utter horror he draped his arm around her shoulders. His breath felt hot
and smelled boozy. “Old friends are important,” he declared. She nodded, not
looking at him. Letting go, he crouched over his wine glass. “I’m fucked,” he
said, so softly she barely heard him. “I need someone to listen to me.”
“I
can listen.” Recognizing she’d slipped into flirt mode but incapable of
stopping, she sipped her wine then set it down when it turned to vinegar in her
mouth.
“You
always were good at that.” He gave her a half-smile and nudged her thigh with
his, sending a bolt of lust down her spine and a whirl of memories crowding
into her wine-muddled brain.
The
two of them had been buddies since forever it seemed. His mother had hired hers
to clean house and work in the brewery after Cara’s father had run off with the
family bank account. She’d gotten to know all the brothers well but had been
drawn to the quiet, polite, athletic redheaded one. Their near-matching hair
color made people call them the ginger duo even as they remained friends
through junior high.
He
had been her first at everything, and she his. They’d fumbled around for a
couple of years in high school, plus one in college before parting ways for
reasons she didn’t like to think about anymore. By the time she’d dumped him,
they’d had sex in more ways and in more locations than she’d thought possible.
And to this day, she considered the standard he’d set for her nearly impossible
to beat—until recently, of course.
“Well,
I’m gonna leave you two old friends to yourselves,” Tricia declared, her voice
strained. Cara reached for her arm again.
“No,
Tricia, don’t.”
“I’m
not interested in a Love-brother sob story, sorry.” She glanced over at the one
in question. “Not in the mood.”
“Can’t
say as I blame you.” Self-pity had crept into Kieran’s voice.
“Don’t
do anything dumb. I mean it.” Her friend’s whisper barely registered in Cara’s
ears.
A
combination of dazed, loopy, and embarrassingly horny sensations overwhelmed
her. Something magnificent seemed imminent, likely a result of the wine
swirling around in her bloodstream on top of the too-many gin drinks from
dinner. She took a long breath and flipped her hair over her shoulder.
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRAILER, produced by
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Narrated by Daniel Dorse, who will record all the books for Audible.com
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DATES: January 5-28, 2015
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brewery-based novels (Paradise Hops, Cheeky Blonde or Honey Red)!
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Liz Crowe bio
**************
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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